Larry Newman, one of the three American balloonists who completed the world’s first trans-Atlantic crossing via balloon, proudly sported a tee shirt with “Mazel Tov” in Hebrew letters. His father, Herb Newman, quipped with journalists, “This, because Jewish luck is more efficient than Christian and I wanted my son Larry to succeed.” Larry Newman, 31, was the youngest of the three balloonists who, 51 years after Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic alone in his small plane, repeated the feat by balloon.
Larry Newman also won the right to sleep in “Lindbergh’s bed”–a small wooden bed in which the American aviator slept after he landed in Paris. The bed had been kept as a historic relic at the American Embassy in Paris. The three balloonists had drown odds on who would sleep in it. Larry Newman won, and his father joked again: “Did’t I tell you that Jewish luck is better?” The three balloonists and their wives are due to return to the United States after being feted by France and Britain for the historic flight.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
