Disaster Mars Sea Captain’s Centennial Trip to Palestine

Captain Umberto Steindler, commanding the S. S. Italia, yesterday completed his hundredth voyage to the Holy Land. But his celebration of the occasion was cut short by an accident aboard ship which resulted in one death, serious injuries to two and minor injuries to five persons.

Sarah Chayes, twenty, of Latvia, was killed when an arm of a crane broke loose and struck her. The others who sustained injuries were Chava Balnemunes, twenty-five, of Riga; Regina Goldberg, twenty-seven, of Czechoslovakia; Israel Jacob Cherwinski, fifty-five, a Jerusalem rabbi; Abraham Baskin, thirty-seven, of Warsaw; Hans Farman, thirty, of Berlin; Dora Uha, twenty-one, of Libau, Latvia, and Leah Breitspies, twenty, of Czechoslovakia.

The Italia was proceeding towards larnaca, Cyprus, when the crane’s arm became dislodged and fell. The ship hoisted a balack flag in mourning. Sarah Chayes was buried in Tel Aviv. Celebrations scheduled in honor of the captain were canceled.

Captain Steindler, a Jew, joined the Lloyd Treistino Company forty years ago. He sailed on board the ships which carried pioneer settlers from Odessa to Jaffa, Palestine. In 1925 he was an officer on the S. S. Gianicolo, which carried large transports of chalutzim, young pioneer workers, to the Holy Land. He was captain on the S. S. Adria, which made sixty-five journeys to Palestine, and has since been sailing on the Italia, now making its thirty-first voyage there.

On August 1, 1933, he brought the Italia into Haifa harbor, the first boat to enter after the harbor’s official opening. His name was inscribed in the golden book of the Jewish National Fund.