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This Week in Rockland: Newspaper Excerpts: Flashback Friday: Week of October 13

October 11, 1873 – 150 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Journal

   ☞ A 450 ton three-masted schooner, the largest ever built in Nyack, was launched from the yard of James Voris, at Upper Nyack, on Monday last.
   ☞ The detentions of the Nyack Express train are all due to the tunnel and cannot be remedied until that great bore is enlarged or relieved of some of its traffic.
   ☞ Reserve fifty cents from next week’s earnings, in order that you may hear the musical wonder, Blind Tom, on the 20th inst., at Nyack Opera House.

CHESTNUTTING
       There is real pleasure in chestnutting. To be sure, when we have arrived at mature manhood, we seek other enjoyments and amusements than those of our childhood’s days; but we have occasional vivid recollections of the time in our boyhood when we went chestnutting, and a marked degree of pleasure thrills our whole system. How we used to climb the rough-barked trees to thrash the branches, and leave small bits of our pantaloons on each little knot; how we peeled the bark from our nose by striking it against a limb harder than our flesh. And how, afterwards, we would scratch among the leaves for the little brown beauties, and clap our hands right square on a big burr, and—but the pleasure is too great to think of, and we will try and forget it, for a time at least.

October 11, 1923 – 100 YEARS AGO
Nyack Evening Journal

MISS ETHEL TRAPHAGEN STARTS FASHION SCHOOL
[Image: Ethel Traphagen, Brooklyn Daily Eagle.]
       In the Globe and Sun of recent date, there appeared a large photograph of Miss Ethel Traphagen, formerly of Nyack. She was pictured as the founder of a new school of fashion which introduces something of the system of apprenticeship. The school will aim especially to stimulate closer co-operation between designers and the manufacturers of dress materials, designs being made by the pupils for the actual materials that are being turned out by the manufacturers. Miss Traphagen herself will instruct in costume design and illustration.
       Miss Traphagen is the youngest sister of J. C. Traphagen of Nyack and her mother is now staying at the Nyack Club.

LOVATT BOYS MAKE BLAIR ACADEMY TEAM
       Walter and Clinton Lovatt, stars last year on the Nyack High School football teams made the football team at Blair Academy this fall.
       The Nyack brothers are very popular with fans at the Blairstown, N.J school and will try for the basketball team later in the season.

JEWISH FAIR AT HAVERSTRAW
       The Jewish Community Center Haverstraw will hold a fair on the evenings of October 16, 17 and 18, to celebrate the completion of the large new auditorium annexed to the synagogue. Many attractive features are being arranged. Prominent speakers have been invited, among whom are Judges Tompkins, Rosalsky and Patterson, former District Attorney Gagan and Hon. Benj. Levison. The Nyack people are cordially invited to attend. Adv.

October 11, 1973 – 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News

ROCKLAND RESIDENTS UNITE TO AID ISRAEL
       Rockland residents of many faiths are participating in a widespread and effective fund-raising campaign to aid Israel.
       Volunteers abound in the synagogues as men like Melvin Steier of New City take off from work to operate adding machines, women like Judy Goldstein of Monsey take the names of people who want to donate blood, and teen-agers like Cheryl Kramer of Hillcrest solicit funds at shopping centers.
       The mood in the Spring Valley-Monsey area is one of somber determination. The volunteers, already ragged from days without sleep, pump themselves full of coffee and continue the work. They generally feel that Israel will win the war, “but they fear the cost of victory may be high.”
       Jews and non-Jews form a steady stream of donors at many area synagogues, adding to a collection the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) estimates at a quarter million dollars a day. 
       — An elderly woman swayed emotionally before a table set up at Temple Beth El, Spring Valley. She tendered a $5 bill to the volunteer who asked for her name. “You don’t need my name I’m not even Jewish. But we’re all God’s children and if one group is being attacked who knows who will be next,” the elderly woman said.
       —A man signed his reparations check from the German government over to the UJA. 
       —The Sunshine Club, a senior citizens group, took up a collection from its members, many of whom live only on social security. 
       —A Ramapo politician took out a loan and other people have taken out second mortgages on their homes to swell the funds.
       People have been free with their money but there is never enough,” said Jeannie Levitt, UJA chairman at Temple Beth El. 
       “It costs a billion dollars a day for Israel to wage this war. They don’t need our help to buy guns and ammunition with—they have them but they do need our money to keep their basic services going.
       “American Jews cannot be complacent about this and say they are Americans only and therefore not affected by what happens in Israel. The German Jews took that viewpoint—they were Germans above all—and paid for it in the ovens,” Mrs. Levin said. 
       Rabbi David H. Chanofsky of the Monsey Jewish Center sounded a similar note.
       “People have flocked here with their money and their tears. We cannot afford to lose this war, for it would be another holocaust. The Arabs have made no secret of their desire to push the Israelis into the sea. But in Israel now the cry that has been heard since the country’s inception is being heard again we will do it because there is no choice.”
       Gary Loew, of 19 Barnacle Drive, Spring Valley, remarked as he wrote out a check that it was for twice what he had pledged.
       David Levin, 16, of Rockingham Road, Spring Valley, was working at a postage meter during his lunch hour. He has been involved with the effort of several county Jewish youth groups since the war erupted. “At first I thought ‘If Jews don’t support Israel, who will?’ but we found that we are getting support from many non-Jews, too.”
       Seymour Levine, of 2 Locust Hollow Drive, Monsey, a member of the Community Synagogue of Monsey, lamented that the war was continuing into the Jewish holiday of Succoth, which, he explained, celebrates the ancient exodus from Egypt and the bounty of the harvest.
       “My friends are only half-hearted about building their succoth (tabernacles for the holiday) in their back yards this year. This holiday, instead of being a joyous celebration, will be a continuation of Yom Kippur (when the war began),” Levine said.
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