A ruby wedding anniversary and the Shabuoth holiday were celebrated together in the home of Jacob Shongut, veteran New York auctioneer, on Bon Air Avenue here yesterday.
Surrounded by what Mr. and Mrs. Shongut described to a Jewish Daily Bulletin reporter as their “dividends,” the couple spent the day reminiscing on the forty years of their married life.
Mr. Shongut smiled and became philosophic in reply to the questions reporters usually ask on such occasions.
What recipe for happiness would he recommend for newlyweds? “There is no philosophy,” he said, while Mrs. Shongut nodded sagely “that is, no particular one.”
Then he listened to his grandchildren playing elsewhere in the house, and he added, “You see, the dividends married life has paid us are pretty good. The oldest dividend is my seventeen-year-old grandson and the youngest is my two-year-old favorite.”
Then Mr. Shongut, who has spent many years auctioning jewelry and metal, recalled the highlights of his political activities. He spoke of his election as coroner in the Bronx, and the day, twenty-five years ago, when he founded his firm, Jacob Shongut, Inc., down on the Bowery.
Mr. Shongut is sixty-one today, and still takes an active interest in all Jewish affairs. He doesn’t believe the Nazi menace can get very far in this country because the government is too liberal to permit such a thing to occur, and besides, he says, the current administration is fostering new social and economic ideals.
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.
