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Rose Feiss Boulevard honors a ‘small but mighty’ maven of the South Bronx

(New York Jewish Week) — In the industrial Port Morris neighborhood in the Bronx, a 10-block stretch of Walnut Avenue bears the name Rose Feiss Boulevard, honoring the Jewish immigrant woman who lived, worked and touched the lives of many in the borough.

Rose Feiss was born in Minsk, Russia in 1901. She immigrated to the United States with her family as a young girl: first to Morgantown, West Virginia, where her father was a rabbi and shochet (kosher butcher) and then to Moodus, Connecticut. Eventually, Feiss and her family moved to the Bronx — a more circuitous route than most Jewish immigrants — where she met her husband, David, at a social club in 1922. She gave birth to their son Murray in 1926.

When Murray went overseas to fight in World War II, Feiss launched a cottage business in the South Bronx manufacturing lampshades. Feiss started StyleCraft as a way for wives and mothers to earn money and stay busy during a stressful time; during the war, the business employed around a dozen women. 

Rose Feiss married her husband David in 1922. She became a naturalized US citizen in 1939. (Courtesy Jane Hersh)

“It seems like a very random act, other than the fact that my grandfather [David] owned a wire factory in the South Bronx — so he made the frames and she would bind the shades,” Feiss’ granddaughter, June Hersh, told the New York Jewish Week “She was just very industrious.”

Eventually, Hersh said her grandparents acquired a “little factory” in the South Bronx for her grandmother’s lampshade business and her grandfather’s wiring company, Associated Wire. “She was always very business-minded, forward-thinking and independent,” said Hersh, a food writer who published her fifth book, “Iconic New York Jewish Food,” earlier this year. “It’s those qualities that led her to become a force in the South Bronx. She would even make pots of food at home and travel with them on the subway so that she could feed the women who were working at the factory.”

When Murray Feiss, who is Hersh’s father, returned from his service in the Navy, he attended business school at NYU with the aim to help his parents unite their wiring and lampshade concerns and grow a formal business. In 1955, the family launched Murray Feiss Lighting in the South Bronx — it eventually became one of the largest lighting companies in the world. 

And though the business bore her son’s name, Rose, whom Hersh describes as “small and mighty,” was always in the room when business decisions were made. As the story goes in her family, Rose came to work well into her 80s, where she would do her rounds on the factory floor and then retire to the couch in Murray’s office — but only to rest her body, not her mind. 

As the business flourished, members of the growing family took on roles at the company — Hersh, along with her mother Dorothy, sister Andrea and their husbands Ron and Robert, all worked there. “My husband, who was co-president of the company, will never forget being in my dad’s office for a major meeting with a bank,” Hersh said. “My father and my brother-in-law and husband were making a deal with the bank and, all of a sudden, they hear my grandmother in the background — who they thought was asleep on the couch — yell, ‘Murray, you’re an idiot!’ because she didn’t like the terms of the deal.”

“That was very much like my grandmother — she was really a force,” Hersh added. “She really set the tone for the ways the women in our family interact and comport ourselves, because she was fierce — but not in a not in a harsh way, in a very determined way. She had very strong convictions.”

Hersh added that her grandmother’s strong sense of Jewish values is what allowed her to lead the company with empathy and conviction. “She was very, very proud of her Jewish heritage and her Jewish roots and she imbued us all with a sense of tzedakah,” she said. “She lived her life as a businesswoman with that philosophy.”

After her death in 1984 at age 83, Murray Feiss sold the lampshade portion of the company — which was Rose’s passion — but continued the lighting side of the business. Still, the family wanted to honor their matriarch’s rich life and legacy in the Bronx. Hersh said her brother-in-law, Robert Greene, wrote to Wendell Foster, the City Council member for the South Bronx, and Stanley Simon, the Bronx borough president, to ask if there was anything the city could do. 

“She always had confidence in the people of the Bronx,” Hersh said. “Most of the people she worked with — and she always said they worked with her, not for her — were immigrants… She sent their kids to college, cosigned mortgages and dressed up as Santa Claus every Christmas for the Christmas party. She had such faith in this community.”

“This was part of her philosophy and the way she viewed her role in life: She did well and she wanted to help others do well in turn,” Hersh added. 

A family photo of Rose’s descendants taken underneath the Rose Feiss Boulevard sign unveiling on June 24, 1987. (Courtesy June Hersh)

Feiss’s generosity was recognized by the city. The family — one son, two granddaughters, and four great-grandchildren — was invited to Gracie Mansion by then Mayor Ed Koch, where he signed his approval to co-name 10 blocks of Walnut Avenue, where the family’s factories were, Rose Feiss Boulevard. 

Rose Feiss Boulevard was unveiled on June 24, 1987. At the ceremony, Feiss’ great-grandson, Adam, gave a speech on behalf of the great-grandchildren about Feiss’ legacy and the importance of doing the right thing, Hersh said.

“She was not the center of attention, by any means, but I think she would be immensely proud,” Hersh said of the co-naming. “My grandfather would also be exceptionally proud; he was supportive of a woman working long before most women left the home to work outside the house.”

After 50 years in business, Murray Feiss Lighting was sold in 2004 — though Rose Feiss’ legacy continues in the South Bronx today. Many of her descendants still live in the region; Hersh, who lives in Manhattan was driving in the Bronx recently and her GPS navigation told her to take a right on Rose Feiss Boulevard. “It was really cool,” she said, adding that she sent a screenshot to everyone in the family. 

“Knowing my grandmother, she would be most proud that it’s a legacy for her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren and something that they can point to,” she added. “This poor girl from Minsk, with no language and no skills, came to this country and left an imprint.”

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The post Rose Feiss Boulevard honors a ‘small but mighty’ maven of the South Bronx appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist

The Jewish community of Beit El in Judea and Samaria. Photo: Yaakov via Wikimedia Commons.

Louis Theroux first visited the West Bank in 2011 to film a documentary titled Louis and the Ultra-Zionists, part of his long-running series for the BBC. Back then, he at least seemed to possess a trace of journalistic curiosity. Even the title signaled a degree of editorial caution — framing his subjects as a small, ideological fringe rather than representative of Israeli society as a whole.

At the time, Theroux made an effort to clarify that he was profiling a narrow segment of Israelis. He showed legally purchased Jewish homes (sold by Arab landowners, no less) and acknowledged the regular — and at times deadly — terror attacks faced by Israeli civilians living in the area, often requiring military protection. There was condescension, certainly. But there was also context.

Fast-forward to 2024, and the curiosity is gone — though the bemused, slightly smug expression remains. His new BBC documentary, Louis and the Settlers, drops even the soft qualifiers. No “ultra.” No nuance. Just “settlers.” And with that, Theroux makes it clear: half a million Israelis living in the West Bank are one and the same — extremists who, we’re told, want every last Palestinian removed from the land.

This time, the documentary doesn’t begin with questions. It begins with conclusions. And Theroux uses a brief, unrepresentative snapshot of life in the West Bank to draw sweeping indictments of the entire Israeli state.

The message is unmistakable: Israel is the problem. Settlers are the villains. And Palestinians are passive, blameless victims of a colonial project.

Within the opening minutes, Theroux plants his ideological flag. He refers to the West Bank as “Palestinian territory” and describes every Israeli community within it as illegal under international law — a sharp departure from his more qualified approach 14 years earlier.

And while his personal views seep in throughout the film, they become crystal clear during one exchange at a checkpoint, where an Israeli soldier casually refers to their location as “Israel.” Theroux shoots back: “We’re not in Israel, are we?”

And just like that, the BBC and Louis Theroux have redrawn Israel’s borders. No Knesset debate needed.

Erasing History to Blame the Massacre

The timing of this return trip is no accident. The film comes in the shadow of the October 7 Hamas massacres — the day 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered, families were burned alive in their homes, and children were dragged into Gaza. And yet, Theroux barely mentions it.

The few passing references to October 7 serve not to inform the audience — but to imply that Israel may be exploiting its own dead to justify further expansion. It’s not an investigation. It’s an accusation. And it allows him to skip over thousands of years of Jewish history in order to frame the current war in Gaza as a convenient cover story for Israeli “aggression.”

Take Hebron, for example. Theroux tells viewers that “in 1968, the year after [the West Bank] was occupied by Israel, a community of Jewish settlers moved in illegally. They now number some 700.” He fails to mention that in 1895 — decades before the modern state of Israel existed — Hebron had a Jewish population of 1,429.

Jews have lived in Hebron since antiquity — it’s where, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs. Modern records date the community back centuries, despite discrimination under Ottoman rule and bans on Jewish prayer at holy sites. In 1929, Arab rioters carried out a massacre, wiping out Hebron’s Jewish population. Dozens were murdered; the rest were expelled. Under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, Jews were banned from the city entirely. When they returned after the Six-Day War — not as colonists, but as a displaced community coming home — Theroux picks up the story there and calls it “illegal.”

On the Six-Day War itself, Theroux offers no context. No mention of the Arab armies preparing to destroy Israel. No mention of Israel’s preemptive strike against an existential threat.

According to The Settlers, Israel simply “occupied” — full stop.

Palestinian Terrorism? Not Even a Footnote.

Theroux visits Evyatar, a small Jewish community near the Palestinian town of Beita, and uses it as a stand-in for the entire West Bank. Beita is depicted as a symbol of peaceful resistance: a proud, ancient Palestinian village standing firm against violent settlers backed by IDF soldiers.

It’s a neat story. Too neat. Because missing from the story are years of organized, violent riots from Beita — complete with Molotov cocktails, burning Stars of David, and Nazi swastikas. All carefully omitted to preserve the narrative: Palestinians peaceful, settlers aggressive. Facts that don’t fit? Left on the cutting room floor.

Meanwhile, Israeli nationalism is treated as something sinister and unsettling — a moral aberration to be examined. The notion that Jews might want sovereignty or security is met with thinly veiled suspicion. Yet Hamas’ goal of a Jew-free Palestine, explicitly laid out in its charter, is never mentioned. Nor is the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay” policy, which literally incentivizes terrorism by rewarding those who murder Israelis — including women and children.

These aren’t fringe details. They’re central to understanding the region. And Theroux knows it. He just doesn’t care.

The BBC’s Complicity

That The Settlers aired on the BBC — a publicly funded broadcaster once seen as a gold standard of global journalism — says plenty. Not just about Louis Theroux’s agenda, but about the institutional direction of the BBC itself. This wasn’t a rogue filmmaker sneaking bias past the editors. This was bias built into the foundation — signed off, packaged, and broadcast under the banner of credibility.

There is, of course, no problem with scrutinizing Israeli policy, and no issue with questioning the settlement enterprise or highlighting the tensions in the West Bank. But journalism — real journalism — demands context. It demands precision. It demands at least a passing familiarity with the full scope of the story.

Theroux offers none of that. He arrives with a predetermined script and casts his roles accordingly: Hero. Villain. Victim. Oppressor. And when reality refuses to cooperate? It’s left out.

Louis Theroux didn’t return to Israel to understand it. He returned to flatten it. To reduce its complexity to a morality play — and to ensure everyone knows the antagonist is.

The Settlers isn’t a documentary. It’s a hit piece. And the BBC handed him the camera — then applauded the performance.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl

Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Photo: Screenshot

The Indian government announced on Thursday that its military forces had killed “Pakistan’s most wanted terrorist,” who was connected to the 2002 murder of Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.

On Wednesday, India launched “Operation Sindoor,” which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claims is targeted at dismantling “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The operation came after Pakistani terrorists killed 26 Hindu tourists in Kashmir last month amid escalating tensions between the two countries.

In a post on X, the BJP confirmed that during this week’s operation, the Indian army killed Islamist terrorist Abdul Rauf Azhar, who was involved in numerous terrorism plots, including the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, the 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament, and the 2016 Pathankot Air Force base attack.

Azhar’s involvement in the 1999 hijacking led to the release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born al-Qaeda member with close ties to Pakistan’s intelligence services, who later was involved in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of 38-year-old Pearl, who was covering the war on terror as a journalist when he was abducted.

In a statement on X, Pearl’s father, Judea, addressed initial reports regarding Azhar’s death and his connection to his son’s murder.

“I want to clarify: Azhar was a Pakistani extremist and leader of the terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed. While his group was not directly involved in the plot to abduct Danny, it was indirectly responsible. Azhar orchestrated the hijacking that led to the release of Omar Sheikh — the man who lured Danny into captivity,” he said.

In 2002, the Jewish-American journalist was abducted and killed by a group of Islamist terrorists connected to Azhar’s militant network, which had ties to al-Qaeda and Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terror group aiming to separate Kashmir from India and incorporate it into Pakistan.

On Jan. 27, 2002, an email was sent to several Pakistani and US media organizations, which included several photos, stating that Pearl was being held in “inhumane” conditions to protest the US treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners in Cuba. Photo: Screenshot

Originally stationed in New Delhi as the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, Pearl later moved to Pakistan to investigate terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.

After kidnapping Pearl at a restaurant in Karachi, southern Pakistan, the Islamist terrorists, who identified themselves as the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, accused him of being an Israeli spy and sent the United States a list of demands for his release.

However, Washington did not meet their demands, and Pearl was ultimately executed after being held captive for five weeks.

His wife, Mariane Pearl, gave birth to a baby boy, Adam D. Pearl, in Paris later that year. On the Daniel Pearl Foundation website, she said, “Adam’s birth rekindles the joy, love, and humanity that Danny radiated wherever he went.”

The post Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Jewelry Shop Owners Brutally Assaulted in Tunisia Days Before Annual Pilgrimage

A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete. Photo: Screenshot

A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete just days before the Tunisian island was set to host its annual Jewish pilgrimage, which is expected to draw thousands of visitors.

On Wednesday morning, two Jewish men — owners of a jewelry shop in the center of the island, located off Tunisia’s southeast coast — were physically assaulted by a man carrying a large knife.

Although the attack was halted when one of them screamed — alerting members of the local Jewish community who subdued the assailant — one of them was left severely injured.

According to local media reports, the attacker had surveyed the island the day before, visiting several stores to identify those owned by Jews. Local police arrested him shortly following the assault.

After the attack, one of the owners was admitted to the hospital with severe injuries. The 50-year-old Jewish man had his fingers severed during the assault and underwent surgery to reattach them.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned the attack and expressed his wishes for a swift recovery to the victims.

“This attack comes two years after the previous deadly assault that claimed Jewish lives and the lives of security personnel during the Lag BaOmer celebration,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.

“I call on the Tunisian authorities to take all necessary measures to protect the Jewish community,” Saar continued.

Djerba is home to the majority of Tunisia’s Jewish community, numbering about 2,000 people, and is also where the renowned El Ghriba Synagogue, one of North Africa’s oldest synagogues, is located.

The attack comes just a week before Jewish pilgrims are expected to arrive on the island for the Lag B’Omer holiday, when thousands gather annually for three days of festivities. The annual pilgrimage to El Ghriba Synagogue, scheduled for May 15 and 16 this year, draws visitors from around the world.

The synagogue has been targeted in multiple terrorist attacks over the years, including in 1985, 2002, and 2023.

Two years ago, a shooting at the synagogue claimed the lives of two Jewish cousins and three police officers. Aviel Hadad, a 30-year-old Israeli goldsmith, and Ben Hadad, a 42-year-old Frenchman who had traveled to join the festivities, were among the victims.

The post Jewish Jewelry Shop Owners Brutally Assaulted in Tunisia Days Before Annual Pilgrimage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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