Isidore Scharfman, one of this country’s leading dress manufacturers, is quietly and unassumingly coming to the fore in New York Jewish life. Born in Yassi, Rumania, forty-nine years ago, Mr. Scharfman arrived in America at the age of seven. He has experienced all the tribulations that befall a Western Union messenger boy and a newsboy. He attended public school in the Bronx, but had to complete his high school education in the evening session at Morris High School.
Mr. Scharfman is proud of the fact that when he married twenty-five years ago he had but fifteen cents in his pocket. Today he heads the third largest dress establishment in New York, and his fortune is estimated at more than $500,000.
He is an ardent Zionist and a generous contributor to many and varied Jewish causesd. It would be hard to find a Jewish communal cause to which he has nto liberally contributed at one time or another.
Last year, one month after Franklin D. Roosevelt had been inaugurated, Mr. Scharfman delved into politics. He submitted to the President a prosperity plan in which he advised Roosevelt to issue insignia as a sign of faith. “The Blue Eagle,” he proudly admits, “is a part of my program.”
King Alexander of Jugoslavia was celebrating his birthday. The capital city of Zagreb was bril-Rantly illuminated for the occasion. But one incident marred the festivities–an anti-Jewish demonstration which had to be quelled by the police.
In the evening the citizens of Zagreb came out to cheer their King. Standing near the King was a stranger who looked decidedly Jewish. Wishing to atone in some way for the disburbances which had taken place that day, the King turned to this man and said, “I have great sympathy with your fellow Jews. I would like to present 10,000 dinar to your synagogue in Zagreb.” The stranger turned red and could only stutter: “Your Majesty, you are making an error. I-I-I happen to represent the German Embassy.”
Much “Aryan” blood has been poured into the veins of Viscount Rothermere since Hitler came to power. “Aryan” blood did not course through the Viscount’s veins when the original text of “Mein Kampf” first appeared.
In this unabridged edition Hitler spoke of the “Rothermere of Jewish blood, and a servant of Judas who conducted anti-German propaganda.”
But since Viscount Rothermere’s pro-Nazi campaign in the London Daily Mail, the Nazis hail him as a pure “Aryan” brother.
“Hurrah for the Black Shirts” (the insignia of the British Fascist Union which Rothermere is so enthusiastic about) was the headline for the “bombastic” article that purified the Viscount’s blood one hundred percent.
“Mein Kampf” bewailed some years ago that the Kaiser lost the war to the Jew Northeliffe. Today Hitlerism rejoices and – is proud to own so “great and powerful a friend” as the firm of Northeliffe.
“What, Fisher, you too wear a brown shirt?”
“Well, what can one do? Who can make enough nowadays to afford white shirts?”
“It smells to the heavens of war–“
‘How so?”
“Hitler just made another stirring appeal for peace.”
B. Z.
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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.
