2/28 | Birthday of Rachel
Today in Yiddishkayt… February 28 Birthday of Eliza Rachel Félix, French actress Eliza Rachel Félix, better known only as Mademoiselle Rachel, was born on February 28, 1821 near the town of Mumpf, Switzerland. Her parents were Jewish peddlers who sold second-hand clothes from a wagon that was both their home and warehouse, a risky profession when Jews were barred from doing business in the country. When Rachel and her sister Sarah were eight and ten years old, they began singing and playing guitar on the streets of Lyons, where they were “discovered” by the Parisian...
Read More1/25 | Birthday of Emil Ludwig
Today in Yiddishkayt… January 25 Birthday of Emil Ludwig, German Writer Emil Ludwig was born Emil Cohn on January 25, 1881 in Breslau (today Wrocław, Poland). The son of a Jewish ophthalmologist, Ludwig studied law but chose to pursue a career in writing. At first he wrote plays and novels and also worked as a journalist, moving to Switzerland in 1906. During World War I he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Berliner Tageblatt in Vienna and Istanbul. Although Ludwig converted to Catholicism as a young man, he renounced his conversion following the murder of German foreign...
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