By Daphne Anson
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| Philadelphia Inquirer, 7 Oct 1918 |
One from the historic annals, a reported Russian Jewish custom to ward off contagion.
The following article (I have no precise date for it) appeared in the American Hebrew during the deadly “Spanish Flu” pandemic of 1918-20, which the present COVID-19 pandemic calls to mind.
The “Spanish Flu” pandemic killed about 10 million people around the world (some sources say 20 million and others 50 million).
The article appeared first in the Public Ledger, a Philadelphia paper.
The ceremony described perhaps fascinated and repelled the non-Jewish and German Jewish readers of that paper in equal measure.
But it was in a good cause.
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