#1930s — Public Fediverse posts

These vintage photos offer a charming glimpse into picnic culture during the 1930s. From family gatherings on grassy hillsides to casual outdoor meals shared on blankets, the images capture the simple pleasures of eating and socializing in nature during a time of economic hardship and social change.
https://www.vintag.es/2026/08/1930s-picnics.html #globalmuseum #photography #TheGreatDepression #1930s

The Gaff: the thread about Craigmillar’s picture houses

Our previous thread explored the history of East Pilton’s Embassy cinema. Many of Edinburgh’s interwar picture houses followed a similar timeline: a briefly glamorous heyday, a long decline as a bingo hall and then being disappeared by the wrecker’s ball. There’s usually a fire in there somewhere for good measure too. Our subject for today are the pair of cinemas that served the districts of Niddrie and Craigmillar – the Rio and the County – and are no exception to this narrative. Outside of their own neighbourhood they are probably also the least weel-kent such establishments in the city.

To your average Edinburgh citizen, equally mysterious probably is what the very words “Niddrie” and “Craigmillar” actually define. They might use them interchangeably to vaguely describe anything and everything in the great unknown east of Peffermill. Such is their reputation that the very mention will inevitably conjure up an inner sense of unease, fear, derision or pity. Many would confidently pronounce an opinion on the places in the same breath as telling you they’ve never actually been there for themselves. They might struggle to pinpoint them on a map but will definitely be able to tell you a dreadful tale or sobering statistic about them. When your author was growing up in the comfortable bubble of west Edinburgh in the 1990s, Niddrie was a word used to strike fear into the hearts of children from Corstorphine and Nidrons were a mythical terror to be avoided at all costs. In retrospect; slanderous nonsense, of course. Such is the shroud of mystery, misunderstanding and misinformation that cloaks this corner of southeast Edinburgh from much of its own city that it’s worth briefly bringing ourselves up to speed on the subject. (If you’d rather jump straight to the Rio cinema, you can click here, but you’ll be missing out!)

In most people’s minds the probably imagine Niddrie or Craigmillar as one vast, contiguous council housing scheme: the reality there is a patchwork of schemes with different names built progressively throughout the 20th century. Up until 1920 the City of Edinburgh stopped where it met the Braid Burn (red and white line on the map below). Beyond this, from an administrative point of view, lay the Parish of Liberton in the County of Midlothian. Moving eastwards you would first have come to the community of Craigmillar – dominated by its industrial creamery, breweries and maltings – before passing through the fields of Niddrie Mains farm. Next, on your right would be the Policies of Niddrie Marischal, the rambling pile of the house of that name in the distance. Keep going and you would come to the pit villages of Niddrie Mill and Jewel before finally encountering the numerous collieries that took the name Niddrie and brought vast wealth to those in the aforementioned big hoose. This would all change after the Edinburgh Boundaries Extension and Tramways Act 1920, which subsumed the parish of Liberton (and others) into the city.

The city’s expansion brought vast new tracts of greenfield land within the Corporation’s reach and they soon began planning council housing upon it. Modern Niddrie began in 1928 when work started east of old Craigmillar on the Niddrie Mains housing scheme. This lay to the north of Niddrie Mains Road on the fields of the farm of that name. The first houses at Harewood Drive were ready for occupation in late 1930 and were formally inaugurated by HRH the Princess Mary, Countess of Harewood, for whom the street was named. Work progressed slowly eastwards and the last of some 2,000-odd houses were completed in 1935. After this came the Craigmillar housing scheme to the south of Niddrie Mains Road. Although it is “habitually lumped in” with Niddrie Mains, “the schemes were wholly different” writes Steven Robb in his history of “Ebenezer Macrae and Interwar Housing in Edinburgh“. Some of this confusion around placenames can be excused by the fact that both of these schemes were in the Craigmillar Ward for town council elections and given the postal address of Craigmillar. Historically however, Niddrie Mains was on the Niddrie estate and Craigmillar on the Craigmillar and Inch estate, two different landholdings.

Niddrie Mains was built to house families cleared from the worst of the slums of the Southside, with a mix of local pit workers added for good measure. Edinburgh’s city fathers considered that these classes of people could best be dealt with by forcing them into better housing, far from the overcrowding and disease of the city and also its temptations and vices. From the very beginning therefore the scheme was fundamentally a sink into which the city could decant its most disadvantaged citizens. Here they were quite literally hidden away, beyond the periphery and out of sight behind Arthur’s Seat. Although their new homes were a vast improvement on where they had come from, people found the scheme a bleak place to live from the outset. The streets were a monotonous grid composed entirely of utilitarian three-storey tenements offering little variation in design. People who were used to their entire worlds being contained in a few surrounding streets found themselves scattered far from their roots, their families and their places of work and entertainment. In case they were tempted to head back “home” and into the city, they were discouraged by the scant public transport and a long bus journey. The Corporation, aware that education was a lever that could be pulled in the name of bettering the populace’s lot, provided fine new schools. The churches too moved in, seeing an opportunity to shepherd what they considered to be their wayward flocks back into their fold. A handful of shops (which took some years to appear) were provided but other public facilities were almost entirely lacking and there was no provision by way of entertainment – and certainly no pubs!

Come 1935 the scheme was nearing completion and had almost 8,000 residents, but there was still precious little for folk to do of an evening. That was all about to change however in the bold form of cinema proprietor Mary Elizabeth Broadhurst (neé Phillips). On July 12th that year her plans for a modern picture house at for 8 Wauchope1 Avenue, by Thomas Linton of Linton and Grierson, were approved by the Dean of Guild Court. With her husband (James Thomas Broadhurst) she had started in the world of the silver screen by taking on the lease of the silent Abbey picture house on North Richmond Street before moving on to the Tollcross on Lauriston Place. It is interesting to note that when Craigmillar finally got its pub (The White House, approved only because it was a “roadhouse”) in 1936 that it was also the enterprise of a woman.

1. Wauchope, pronounced Wawcup, was named for the Wauchope family of Niddrie Marischal House, from whom the land for Niddrie Mains had been purchased by the Corporation ↩︎

The Rio, as it came to be named, was the first picture house built for one of Edinburgh’s new housing estates. It was opened on February 6th 1936 by the Aberdonian stage comic Harry Gordon. The Evening News reported that “it compared favourably with those in Princes Street in so far as comfort, seating and central heating was concerned“. Introducing him, Councillor David Moir joked that the ticket prices (6d for the front stalls, 6d for the circle and 1s for the balcony) “were such that even an Aberdonian would not object to paying them.” Gordon replied he was proud to have been the first person to have gotten in without paying.

The opening show was a double-bill of Dick Powell and Roby Keeler in Flirtation Walk and Edward G. Robinson in Passport to Fame after which the usual programme was two pictures, plus newsreels and cartoons, changing twice weekly. The venture cost Mrs Broadhurst £15,000 (approximately £950 thousand in 2026) and had 1,135 seats – not too big but not too small. It had a pared-back moderne styling – fashionable but on a budget – sadly I cannot find a picture but it probably shared the same façade with the later County. The sound system was provided by Film Industries Equipment (FIE) and seems to have been a unique installation. Further details are hard to come many. However the 1937 trade journal Kinematograph Year Book gives the prices as being 4d to 9d and the number of seats as 1,235, from which we might surmise that it had been found necessary to reduce prices and increase the number of seats to make the place pay.

A few further snippets in the short life of the Rio can be gleaned from the pages of the Evening News. Mrs Broadhurst was fined £3 in March 1938 at the Burgh Court for allowing overcrowding during children’s matinees and for failing to keep an attendant stationed at each exit door. The authorities took such a charge very seriously after the 1929 Glen cinema disaster in Glasgow in which 71 children had died as the result of a panic and subsequent crush in the overcrowded cinema. The City Prosecutor charged that this was a regular occurrence at the Rio and the police had followed up on complaints by sending plain clothes officers to investigate. On the afternoon of Saturday 26th February they found that there were more children in the auditorium than there were seats: in the front row alone there were 17 occupying 10 places! Mrs Broadhurst acknowledged that her house had been understaffed and overfilled but maintained that it had been a one-off, accidental oversight.

There were no other public halls beyond church halls in the area, various community fund-raising events for the district were held at the cinema (“the use of which was readily granted by the proprietrix“) and Mrs Broadhurst would pay each Christmas for members of the Niddrie Mains and Craigmillar branch of the Old Age Pensioners Association to have their tea and a concert at the University Settlement. Like many cinemas, vandalism proved to be a problem, particularly so in the war years. In October 1944, Dennis Muldownie (19) of Craigmillar Castle Terrace was fined £2 for maliciously breaking the wooden back of a tip-up seat. The city prosecutor commented that this sort of offence was “becoming increasingly common” and Mrs Broadhurst told the court she had spent £60 on seat repairs in the past year alone.

The short life of the Rio came to an abrupt end on October 5th 1946 when it was gutted by fire. The alarm was raised at 2:15AM that morning and by the time the fire brigade arrived from Lauriston Place fifteen minutes later they found a “raging inferno“; the whole auditorium was ablaze and the stalls, circle and gallery already totally consumed. The adjacent tenement had to be evacuated as a precaution and one hose was set on watering it down to prevent the fire spreading to it. Once the last embers were dampened down and the smoke cleared all that was left was the façade, the outside walls and the fire-proof projection box.

Mrs Broadhurst was determined to rebuild and within a month the Dean of Guild Court approved her application to reconstruct to plans by M. Cormie. It was not quite that simple however as final authority in the stringent post-war austerity regime had to come from the Ministries of Works and of Labour. The Town Council lent its support to a public petition organised by local social and welfare bodies in the Craigmillar area, declaring that having a cinema in the district was a social necessity. In the mean time the city magistrates granted the Craigmillar Community Association an entertainments licence to show 16mm films on Friday evenings to schoolchildren. The Ministry approvals were not forthcoming until February 1949 and by this time it was owned by Harry Paulo (known locally as Harry Polo) and Robert Scott, the Broadhursts appear to have retired to the Isle of Man instead. Paulo & Scott owned the County in Portobello and the New County in Haddington and perhaps took the place on after their own experience. The New County had burned down in 1933, leaving little more than a facade, and had been rebuilt and re-opened by them in had the reconstruction undertaken by none other than Thomas Bowhill Gibson. Unsurprisingly Paulo & Scott renamed their new venture the County: to locals however it was simply The Gaff. It re-opened in a low key ceremony on August 29th 1950 conducted by Bailie Jack Kane, later Lord Provost and after whom the Jack Kane Centre is named.

Gibson is perhaps the most prominent interwar Scottish cinema architect and as well as Porty’s County designed the Dominion in Morningside and the Rutland at the West End. The austere, boxy lines of the rebuilt house are less than typical of his work and suggest that much of the original façade had been retained. The first screening was a double bill of Robert Paige in Red Stallion and Donald O’ Connor in Feudin, Fussin and a’ Fighting.

Robert Scott died in 1953 and Harry Paulo sold the other cinemas; that in Portobello becoming The George. This left him in sole charge in Craigmillar where he was known as Harry Polo. He has the reputation of having been a very hands-on proprietor and would mingle with the queues of children for the Saturday morning shows, welcoming them. He was also something of a mystery. When Edinburgh’s original cinema and theatre historian, George Baird, visited the establishment in 1962 to catalogue it he was perplexed to find a Mr Butcher in charge who refused to talk to him and had forbidden any member of his family and staff to do so either. This confusion arose as “Mr Paulo” was a member of the extended Paulo family of circus and amusements promoters, whose principal family name was actually Butcher and many of whose sons were Christened Henry but known as Harry. Harry Paulo of the County was actually Francis Henry Butcher (1899-1978), also a member by marriage of the Codona family of Fun City.

Mr Butcher was the only cinema owner who refused to give me any information. However, I got the ‘gen’ necessary to put it on the map. The intervention of the fire caused a four year gap, which took me three hours to track to its source.

George Baird writing on the County and “Mr Paulo” in Edinburgh Theatres, Cinemas and Circuses 1820-1963.

When Baird visited the County it had recently become a “dual purpose house”, showing films five nights a week and catering to the growing craze of bingo the other two. Such was the success of the latter venture that in late 1963 it went over to it exclusively and like many of its contemporaries would have a much longer career as a bingo hall than a picture house. The last films were shown without ceremony on October 18th; a double bill of Herhard Reidman in Arena of Fear and Don Borisenko in The Fast Ones. In 1970 a licence for County Bingo was granted to Thomas J. Paulo (I believe this was Harry’s son) who transferred it to his company County Properties and Developments Ltd. in 1977. Starting with in Craigmillar, this Paulo built up a chain of bingo halls across the Scottish Central Belt.

Like its predecessor, the County remained one of the very few places of entertainment in Niddrie and Craigmillar. It survived the grim years of the 1980s as Niddrie Mains entered a decline from which it would never recover, the community being slowly crushed by unemployment, addiction, crime, social deprivation and official indifference. These are things with which its name has become (often unfairly) synonymous.

I have not been able to find out exactly when the County Bingo closed, however its licence was renewed as late as 1996 and it has a cameo appearance as a backdrop in the 1998 film adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s The Acid House. In the second chapter the character Johnny (Kevin McKidd) can twice be seen walking past the hall, cheerfully painted in a Neapolitan colour scheme of pastel pink, chocolate and vanilla. The graffiti plastered across the boarded up doors suggests it was abandoned by this time.

By this time the city of Edinburgh had decided that Niddrie Mains was unsalvageable and the best thing to do with the place would be to erase it entirely from the face of the earth and pretend that it had never existed. Demolition of some burnt-out properties had begun in the late 1970s and by the new millennium clearance started with some determination. This was despite the fact that for all the failings of the scheme, its houses were fundamentally well built and well designed: thousands of identical ones remain in use to this day and can be brought up to modern standards with the will and the investment. As the neighbourhoods blocks were depopulated and became vacant they were boarded up to await demolition. This resulted in many being heavily vandalised. As a result, life became worse for those who remained. Their number dwindled along with the housing stock, leaving behind houseless streets-to-nowhere to be slowly reclaimed by weeds.

A few determined residents held out until the end but by 2008 everything was gone, including the County. If you were to go looking for the it today, you will find a short stub of tarmac off of the access road around the back of Lidl where it once stood. A vast, multi-million pound transformation has taken place since then with new houses, streets and facilities as far as the eye can see. Of the entire Niddrie Mains estate, which once had over 2,000 houses, a few street names and only a single six-flat block remains at 65 Niddrie Mains Terrace. This survived only because it had been kept by the Council as a day service hub and was transferred to the LAR Housing Trust who restored it to residential use.

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"Named In Chicago Racket Indictment"
August 4, 1933
#OTD #AlCapone #AaronSapiro
#1930s

17 Great Depression recipes people still use during hard times https://www.diningandcooking.com/2754386/17-great-depression-recipes-people-still-use-during-hard-times-2/ #19291939 #1930s #AshCakes #Cooking #food #FrugalMeals #GreatDepression #GreatDepressionCake #GreatDepressionFood #GreatDepressionMeals #GreatDepressionRecipe #GreatDepressionRecipes #GreatDepressionSoup #GreatestGeneration #HooverStew #RecipeTopics #Recipes #RivelSoup #SoupRecipes #StewRecipes #TheGreatDepression #TomatoSoupCake #WackyCake #WaterPie

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As an impecunious teenager in the UK years ago, I was delighted to pick up this recording of the 5th Symphony of Shostakovitch for 50p at W. H. Smith.

I had already heard and been delighted by the 1st Symphony, so I spent my money on the strength of the composer's name alone.

It's a very different work, of course -- dramatic, bleak at times, but also lyrical and perhaps ironic too. I've never tired of it.

I've listened to some of the other symphonies since then (not the 2nd or 3rd) but come back to the 1st and the 5th as my favourites.

It might not be obvious from the garish album cover that this recording is in fact a reissue of....

#ClassicalMusic #Shostakovitch #5thSymphony #RussianMusic #SovietMusic #20thCenturyMusic #Symphonic #1930s #Stalinism

17 Great Depression recipes people still cook today during hard times

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/17-great-depression-recipes-people-still-are-cooking-today-during-hard-times-ex1/

Ashkenazi Jews

Author’s Note: This post has mentions of Nazis, the Holocaust, & Nazi Germany. We completely understand if you wish to skip over this post. We’ll catch you in the next one!

Also known as Ashkenazic Jews, Ashkenazis, or Ashkenazim.

This is a form of distinct ethnic subdivision of the Jewish Diaspora. Emerging from the Jewish communities that consolidated during the 10th century in the Rhineland (Western Germany) & northern France. They migrated there from centers such as the Italian peninsula & the Southern Levant. This includes present-day Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, & Jordan.

After numerous massacres of Jews during the Crusades (11th-13th centuries), they began a gradual eastward migration due to mounting restrictions within the Holy Roman Empire & the favorable policies of Casimir the Great & others.

This diaspora ramped up after the persecution during the Black Death of the 14th century. The bulk of the Ashkenazi Jews had migrated to the Kingdom of Poland (which includes modern-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, & parts of Russia). This area became the main center of Ashkenazi Jewry until the Holocaust.

Ashkenazim adapted their traditions, rites, & customs to Europe. They traditionally followed the German rite synagogue ritual & until the Holocaust primarily spoke Yiddish, an offshoot of Middle High German written in a variety of the Hebrew script, with significant Hebrew, Aramaic, & Slavic influences.

The Yiddish language progressively declined in prestige, in favor of national languages & Hebrew, being stigmatized by assimilationists & later also Zionists. Though it was spoken by over 11 million people worldwide before the Holocaust. The Yiddishist movement, which sought to preserve & revive the language, faded through the 20th century. Including Duolingo adding Yiddish as a language.

As a proportion of the world Jewish population, Ashkenazim were estimated to be 3% in the 11th century, rising to 92% in 1930, near the population’s peak. The Ashkenazi population was significantly diminished by the Holocaust carried out by Nazi Germany during WWII, which killed around 6 million Jews. Before WWII, the estimated worldwide Jewish population was 15.3-16.7 million, with 92% being Ashkenazi. As of 2023, the population of Ashkenazim was estimated to be around 10-13 million out of 15.8 million total Jews.

The name Ashkenazi comes from the biblical figure of Ashkenaz. He’s the 1st son of Gomer, grandson of Japhet, great-grandson of Noah, & a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations. The name for Gomer has often been linked to the Cimmerians.

The Biblical Ashkenazis are usually derived from Assyrian Askuza, a people who expelled the Cimmerians from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates. The name Askuza is identified with the Scythians.

In Jeremiah 51:27, Ashkenaz figures as 1 of 3 kingdoms in the far north, the others being Minni (or Mannaea), an ancient kingdom that flourished in northwestern Iran, & Arrat (corresponding to Urartu), called on by God to resist Babylon.

Ashkenaz is linked to Scandza/Scanzia (usually identified with Scandinavia), viewed as the cradle of Germanic tribes, in the 6th-century gloss to the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius. In the 10th century, in the History of Armenia of Yovhannes Drasxanakertci, Ashkenaz was associated with Armenia.

As it was occasionally in Jewish usage, where its denotation extended at times to Adiabene, Khazaria, Chimea, & areas to the east. They’re also identified with the Slavim or Slavs. In keeping with the custom of designating areas of Jewish settlement with biblical names, Spain was called Sefarad (Obadiah 20), France was called Tsarefat (I Kings 17:9), & Bohemia was called the Land of Canaan.

Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France & Germany following the Carolingian unification, the term Ashkenazi came to refer to the Jews of both medieval Germany & France.

In later times, the word Ashkenaz is used to designate southern & western Germany, the ritual of which sections differs somewhat from that of eastern Germany & Poland. Thus, the prayer book of Isaiah Horowitz (a prominent rabbi & mystic), & many others, give the piyyutim (a Jewish liturgical poem), according to the Minhag of Ashkenaz & Poland. A Minhag is an accepted tradition or group of traditions in Judaism.

In a religious sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is any Jew whose family tradition & synagogue ritual follow Ashkenazi practices (German rite). Until the Ashkenazi community 1st began to develop in the Early Middle Ages, the centers of Jewish religious authority were in the Islamic world, at Baghdad & Islamic Spain. German Ashkenaz was so geographically distant that it developed a minhag of its own.

The counterpart of Ashkenazi is Sephardic. Since most non-Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews follow Sephardic rabbinical authorities, whether or not they’re ethnically Sephardic. By tradition, a Sephardic or Mizrahi (a.k.a. Oriental Jews; Jews who lived in the Muslim world) who married into an Orthodox or Haredi (a.k.a. ultra-Orthodox) Ashkenazi Jewish family raises her kids to be Ashkenazi Jews.

On the other hand, an Ashkenazi woman who married a Sephardi or Mizrahi is expected to take on Sephardic practices & the kids will “inherit” a Sephardic identity. Though in practice, many families do compromise. A “convert” usually follows the practice of the rabbinical court (beth din) that converted them.

Culturally, an Ashkenazi Jew can be identified by the concept of Yiddishkeit, which means “Jewishness” in the Yiddish language. Before the Haskalah (a.k.a. the Jewish Enlightenment) & the emancipation of Jews in Europe, this meant the study of the Torah & the Talmud for men, & communal life governed by the observance of Jewish Law for men & women.

From the Rhineland to Riga (the largest city in Latvia) to Romania, most Jews prayed in liturgical Ashkenazi Hebrew, & spoke Yiddish in their secular (worldly) lives. But with modernization, Yiddishkeit now includes not just Orthodoxy & Hasidism, but a broader range of movements, ideologies, practices, & traditions in which Ashkenazi have participated & somehow kept a sense of Jewishness. Although pockets of Jews still speak Yiddish, Yiddishkeit can be identified in manners of speech, styles of humor, & in patterns of association.

As Ashkenazi Jews moved away from Europe, mostly in the form of aliyah to Israel. Or immigration to North America, South Africa, Europe (particularly France), & Latin America, the geographic isolation has given way to mixing with other cultures, & with non-Ashkenazi Jews who, similarly, are no longer isolated in distinct geographic locales.

Hebrew has replaced Yiddish as the primary Jewish language for many Ashkenazi Jews. Although many Hasidic & Hareidi groups still use Yiddish in daily life. Aliyah is the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to, historically, the geographic Land of Israel or the Palestine region, where the State of Israel was established.

France’s blended Jewish community is typical of the cultural recombination that’s going on among Jews throughout the world. Although France expelled its original Jewish population in the Middle Ages, by the time of the French Revolution, there were 2 distinct Jewish populations.

One consisted of Sephardic Jews, originally refugees from the Inquisition (which no one expects! Sorry, we’re Monty Python fans here.) & concentrated in the southwest. While the other community was Ashkenazi, concentrated in formerly German Alsace, & mainly speaking a German dialect similar to Yiddish.

The 3rd community of Provencal Jews living in Comtat Venaissin was technically outside France, & was later absorbed into the Sephardim. Comtat Venaissin (called Comtat, for short) was a part of the Papal States from 1274 to 1791.

But after emancipation, a sense of a unified French Jewry emerged, especially when France was wracked by the Dreyfus Affair in the 1890s. (We’ll be doing a post about the Dreyfus Affair.) In the 1920s & 30s, Ashkenazi Jews from Europe arrived in large numbers as refugees from antisemitism, the Russian Revolution, & the economic turmoil of the Great Depression.

By the 1930s, Paris had a vibrant Yiddish culture, & many Jews were involved in diverse political movements. After the Vichy years & the Holocaust, the French Jewish population was augmented once again, 1st by Ashkenazi refugees from Central Europe, & later by Sephardi immigrants & refugees from North Africa, many of them francophone. Francophone refers to people/organizations who use French (language) regularly.

Ashkenazi Jews didn’t transmit their traditions or achievements by text. Instead, these traditions were passed down orally from one generation to the next. The desire to maintain pre-Holocaust traditions relating to Ashkenazi culture has often been met with criticism by Jews in Eastern Europe.

In an ethnic sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is a descendant of the Jews who settled in the Central European region of “Ashkenaz.” For roughly 1,000 years, the Ashkenazim were a reproductively isolated population in Europe.

Despite living in many countries, with little inflow or outflow of countries from migration, conversion, or intermarriage with other groups, including other Jews. Since the mid-20th century, many Ashkenazi Jews have intermarried, both with members of other Jewish communities & non-Jews.

Religious persecution of the Jews in Western & Central Europe led to a significant migration of the Ashkenazi Jews into Eastern Europe. This resulted in a major cultural divide between Western/Central & Eastern Ashkenazi communities. In particular, this was reflected in the division of Yiddish into Western & Eastern Yiddish dialects. As well as in other cultural distinctions: traditions, food, dress, etc.

Initially, the Jews of Eastern Europe enjoyed relative freedom in terms of movement, being invited by the kings of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Over time, the situation was reversed. By the 19th century, the Jews in the West had gradually been integrated into the general society.

While the Eastern Ashkenazi maintained their strict Jewish traditions & were mostly confined to ghettos, especially in the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire, which incorporated a considerable amount of land where the Eastern Ashkenazi lived: Poland & Lithuania.

Well-known differences in practices include:

• Observance of Passover (Pesach)
  • Ashkenazi Jews traditionally refrain from eating legumes, grain, millet, & rice. Quinoa has become accepted as a food grain in North American communities. Sephardi Jews typically don’t prohibit these foods.
• Notwithstanding stricter requirements for the ACTUAL slaughter, Sephardi Jews permit the rear portions of an animal after proper Halakhic removal of the sciatic nerve. While many Ashkenazi Jews don’t.
• Ashkenazi Jews often name newborns after deceased family members, not after living relatives. Sephardi Jews often name their kids after their grandparents, even if those grandparents are still living. An exception to this is among Dutch Jews, where Ashkenazi for centuries used naming conventions otherwise attributed exclusively to Sephardim, such as Chuts. Chuts is the name given to Jews who immigrated to London from the Netherlands in the 1850s-1860s.
• Ashkenazi tefillins are wound toward the body, not away from it. Ashkenazim put on the tefillin while standing up. Other Jews generally do so while sitting down. A tefillin(s) is/are sets of small black leather boxes with leather straps having scrolls of parchment written with verses of the Torah inside.
• The prayer shawl (tallit/tallis) is worn by all Ashkenazi men AFTER marriage. Except for Western European Ashkenazi men who wear it from the bar mitzvah. In Sephardi or Mizrahi Judaism, the prayer shawl is commonly worn from early childhood.

The term Ashkenazi also refers to the Nusach Ashkenaz, the liturgical tradition used by Ashkenazi Jews in their siddur (prayer book). A nusach is defined by a liturgical tradition’s choice of prayers, the text of prayers & melodies used in the singing of prayers. 2 other major forms of nusach among Ashkenazi Jews are Nusach Sefard (not to be confused with the Sephardic ritual), which is the general Polish Hasidic nusach, and Nusach Ari, used by those in Chabad.

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The Forty Days of Musa Dagh -- Franz Werfel

I read this 1933 novel a little while ago. It's a long, one might almost say sprawling, fiction of an Armenian community's 1915 resistance to the genocide enacted by the.Young Turks.

The narrative of a community under siege is gripping, but the novel also deals with complex themes of identity, community, and nationality. As one might expect from a German speaking Jew who grew up in the capital of the Czech lands of Austria-Hungary, Werfel's treatment of the themes of nationalism and cosmopolitanism are, thankfully, never simplistic.

Obviously , much of the book's significance rests on it being an early literary response to the Armenian genocide. I'm sure that a horrified desire to learn about this campaign of persecution, exile, and killing accounts for much of the success that this book achieved in the US market on its publication in 1934. A readiness to learn about a gruesome episode in the "war to end all wars" probably played a part too in boosting sales.

I would also hazard a guess that for many readers in the thirties, the novel's story of a community's survival, albeit at a terrible price, could be seen as a parallel for the survival by individuals,families, and cities of the unprecedented hardships and upheavals of the Great Depression. The success of "Gone With The Wind" comes to mind.

Another parallel that now seems eerily prescient is that of...

#Books #Fiction #Novels #FortyDaysOfMusaDagh #FranzWerfel #LiteratureInGerman #ArmenianGenocide #20thCenturyLiterature #1930s #GreatDepression

Horst P. Horst -- Still Life --1937

#Photography #Art #HorstPHorst #StillLife #TwentiethCentury #1930s

Photograph, Jones-McIntosh Wedding

This is a studio photograph of the wedding of Mary Jones and James McIntosh, which took place in 1931. At the time, Mary was 22 and James 26. Mary was the daughter of Barbara and Henry Jones. Henry died in 1910, when Mary was only a baby, in a steeplechase accident whilst following the hounds at a Hunt Club Meeting. James grew up on his family farm at Brighton, just out of Dunedin. The couple had three children together. We believe they lived on Pine Hill Road, Dunedin, and James worked as a storeman. Mary died in 1979 aged 70 years. Her ashes were scattered. James died in 1994 aged 88. He is buried in the Green Island Cemetery with his parents, brother George and his grandmother, Christina. Cemetery records show that James mother, Elizabeth, was living with Mary and James at the time of her death. We have been unable to establish how this family connects to our area. Perhaps one of their children later lived in the Lower Mataura Valley.
Wyndham & Districts Historical Museum via DigitalNZ

http://api.digitalnz.org/records/48093475/source

#PeopleAndFamilies #1930s #Organic #H212MmXW160Mm #Museums #Wyndham&DistrictsHistoricalMuseum

https://thetricontinental.org/art-bulletin-anti-fascist-woodcuts/

The woodcut's power to communicate across class and national boundaries .

I did not know about Lu Xun's role in facilitating the development of the politically committed print in China.

#Art #Print #Woodcut #Antifascism #1930s #China #Mexico #LuXun #TwentiethCentury

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https://blanton.emuseum.com/objects/14537/dance-marathon

Although subtlety is not one of the virtues of Philip Evergood's 1934 "Dance Marathon", viewers today might well require an explanation of what dance marathons were in order to understand the picture.

Once the subject is clarified, the picture provides an excellent starting point for thinking about art and the Great Depression and the possibilities and problems of "political" art then and now.

"Dance Marathon" also offers a way into some important literature of the twenties and thirties, since a dance marathon is central to hardboiled writer Horace McCoy's 1935 novel "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?".

#DanceMarathon #PhilipEvergood #Art #USArt #AmericanArt #20thCenturyArt #1930s #GreatDepression #HoraceMcCoy #TheyShootHorsesDontThey #SocialRealism

Early Career of Lana Turner: Portraits from the 1930s

📰 Original title: 30 Stunning Portraits of a Very Young and Beautiful Lana Turner in the 1930s

🤖 IA: It's clickbait ⚠️
👥 Users: It's clickbait ⚠️

View full AI summary: https://en.killbait.com/early-career-of-lana-turner-portraits-from-the-1930s.html?utm_source=mastodon_world&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=killbait.mastodon_world

#cinema #lanaturner #hollywood #1930s

What To Watch On YouTube Right Now – Part 138

Welcome back my readers, YouTube viewers and all others who followed this series of articles focused on YouTube videos worth watching.

Have you been searching for something fun or interesting to watch on YouTube? Do you feel bored right now and you crave for something to see on the world’s most popular online video destination?

I recommend you check out the following videos I found.

#1 How To Get The Strongest And Most Optimized Spaceship Crew In Starfield – This year, Bethesda launched several important updates to make their 2023 science fiction role-playing game Starfield better and they also offered new DLC for those who crave for new content. One of the more defining aspects of the game is space travel and this includes setting up your own crew for your spaceship and there is impact on its functions and capabilities. If you want to learn how to get the stronger and most optimized crew for your ship, I encourage you watch the video below.

https://youtu.be/vy8iOx7eqVU?si=gn7W1mZxTOQ4SSrd

#2 Mari Iijima And The Defining Song of Macross: Do You Remember Love? – I really love watching the 1984 anime feature film Macross: Do You Remember Love? Apart from the great animation, the spectacle, the memorable characters and the solid storytelling, the movie also has a great soundtrack made to delight the long-time Macross fans. Still, the movie has its very own song performed by none other than Mari Iijima (Minmay) and it is a classic among Macross fans. In the videos below, you will see Mari Iijima perform the song live in a 1980s TV broadcast and the song playing with selected footage of Macross: Do You Remember Love? Enjoy these!

https://youtu.be/OfuW_Wbt73c?si=Q1DE8eJxo4Zk90pc

https://youtu.be/uJBMYV9e1Nc?si=veDGYU4r7s0flQ_H

#3 The Tuna City In Japan Is Changing With Tourism In Mind – If you plan to visit Japan at all, you might want to discover Miura City located in Kanagawa Prefecture. Miura City is famous for its fresh tuna and in recent times there has been a series of changes as several room-only hotels and new trends have sprouted as the locality is finding new ways to turn visitors into overnight guests. This is a place I would like to visit someday if ever I get the opportunity to return to Japan. Watch and learn from the Nippon TV video below.

https://youtu.be/fUPP30fYH78?si=MrC6Dml3IRVe7fcV

#4 Women’s Rights Activist Marries Islamist And Things Went Wrong – Did you notice that there is a gradual rising number of feminists and women’s rights activists who not embrace Islam (wicked and ugly) but also marry Islamists believing that things will be alright and they can just continue their activism. Of course, many of them activists and feminists do not fully understand Islam nor the full content of the Quran. As such, when things go very wrong, they are get into deep trouble. Watch and learn from the video below.

https://youtu.be/bx3YvoyP6cw?si=omxqhyR8CQfpfhYK

#5 Islamists Violate Hindu Women In India And Get Arrested – Let’s be very clear here. Islamists are oriented to conquer others even though they may not be numerous within a locality. Believe it or not, a group of such people who wielded power inside a business violated the Hindu women (plus at least one male employee) with regards to cultural norms and doing things that go against their faith. Even forced religious conversion happened. Watch and learn from the video below.

https://youtu.be/9xjFS-3Vuws?si=xuDIivIonrp9tQux

#6 Meatballs Reaction And Retrospective – When it comes to cinematic comedy, Bill Murray is iconic and his early work in 1979’s Meatballs already involved the late Harold Ramis and the late director Ivan Reitman. That said, there is something about Meatballs – produced for less than $2 million – that helped it achieve tremendous commercial success with ticket sales of $70 million. Remember, three of the creative minds behind the classic Ghostbusters are involved in this old movie and you will see how You, Me and The Movies react to it in the video below. Be aware that as of this writing, there are not too many movie reaction videos about Meatballs on YouTube. Also posted below is an in-depth retrospective about Meatballs by GoodBadFlicks.

https://youtu.be/nhR9xUCvpAI?si=Zh6gjAX0SdIrtSfT

https://youtu.be/D0BS-K3K_vE?si=HtyR_VThLUKv0Wj6

#7 Ashleigh Burton Reacts To The Thin Man – Have you ever heard of The Thin Man? It’s not a UFO reference. It’s the 1934 American pre-Code comedy-mystery movie that was eventually named to the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress having been deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” in 1997. Apart from its reputation in American film history, The Thin Man also resulted in five sequels. If you want to discover the 1934 movie but you don’t have the time nor resources to watch the movie, watch Ashleigh Burton’s reaction video and see how it impacts her.

https://youtu.be/IJRQXuw–20?si=mSYY7_Eb4EK6reBY

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John Finnemore on The Allusionist podcast:
https://mgln.ai/e/282/pscrb.fm/rss/p/rss.art19.com/episodes/5887408e-4fea-46c3-a835-2a31f745ee9a.mp3
#JohnFinnemore #Allusionist #puzzle #puzzles #English #language #crossword #spoonerism #1930s #CainsJawbone #EdwardPowysMathers #LaurenceSterne

"Bridge"
Teableau for 08/25/25

The painting is "Bridge" by Joseph Stella, 1936, for the WPA. You know, back when the US federal government could actually do something good for the country and its people.

#Tea #WPA #Art #GreatDepression #Teableau #TeaCozy #TeaCosy #BlackTea #GreenTea #VintageChina #Handmade #Sewing #Painting #1930s #ArtDeco #ArtNouveau #NewDeal #JosephStella

Girls in New Orleans.
1935 Resettlement Administration photo by Ben Shahn.

@noladon

#NewOrleans #WPA #1930s #BenShahn

Song of the Day November 22 2024

In remembrance of the 120th anniversary of the birth of Horace Henderson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Henderson

Horace Henderson and His Orchestra - “Happy Feet"

https://youtu.be/nssGRviX1sU?si=3JRNOfYu83o5ahAl

#SongOfTheDay #SOTD #SOTD2024 #November22 #HoraceHenderson #HappyFeet #Jazz #BigBand #SwingMusic #Music #AudioRecording #1930s