B12 | The Jewish Press | April 3, 2020
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OZZIE NOGG In 1948, shortly after Israel was recognized by the United Nations, Hannah Logasa began to question whether the country’s barren soil could support a growing population. Logasa was almost 70 at the time, but still remembered facts she’d learned in an agronomy course taken decades earlier. The soil in Palestine, she recalled, is similar to the land in New Mexico and Arizona, and castor beans and soy beans grow abundantly in those states. So Hannah Logasa sat down and wrote a letter to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, suggesting that beans would make a perfect food crop for Israel. Ben-Gurion passed the idea to his agricultural experts, the country planted fields of beans and a grateful Ben-Gurion later said, “Hannah Logasa saved Israel from starvation.” Quite an accolade. So, who was this feisty woman, anyway?
Hannah Logasa was born in 1878 in Ukraine, the daughter of Seth and Ida Logasa, Sephardic Jews who arrived in Omaha when Hannah was three years old. Seth Logasa opened a small grocery store on Capitol Avenue between 10th and 11th St. Hannah worked in the store, cooked the family meals and stayed out of high school to help raise her brother and two sisters — even teaching them how to play baseball. She overcame her lack of formal education by reading on her own, and in 1904 landed her first job at the Omaha Public Library. In 1906, Hannah attended summer school classes in library science at the University of Iowa. Her career rise was rapid. By 1908 she was a head librarian, and in 1914 Hannah was put in charge of the Omaha library’s Department of Statistics and Accounts. See Hannah Logosa page B13
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Continued from page B10 Nov. 7, 1910 page one center morning edition of the Daily Bee headlines proclaimed World-Herald Slander Against Jews Recalled Paper Printed Insult Against Race, Apologized, Then Repeated the Slurs. Hitchcock was a false friend of the Jews based on a letter allegedly signed by William Castleman and four other prominent Jewish citizens. The Bee endorsed the incumbent Republican Elmer Burkett who had served in the House of Representatives from 1899 to 1905 and the Senate from 1905 to 1911. Later in the day the World-Herald responded with a vehement full column on the front page: JEWISH PEOPLE RESENT ATTACK ON HITCHCOCK Bee’s Charge That He Has Not Been Friendly to Them answered by Fact Former Secretary of B’nai B’rith Recalls Instances of Matter of Immigration JEWISH FOLK SIGN NAMES AS VOTING FOR HITCHCOCK IN THE FACE OF ATTACK And as to William, Castleman NAILS A FALSEHOOD Editor William Castleman Tells of Hitchcock as Foreigners’ Friend Both the Bee and the World-Herald identified Castleman as a Jewish newspaper editor. Election day was Tuesday, Nov. 8, 1910. Gilbert Hitchcock owned the World-Herald. He served in Congress from 1907 to 1911. He ran for the Senate as a Democrat in 1911 and defeated incumbent Burket. Hitchcock served until 1923. The Hitchcocks were a Republican family, but Gilbert was a Democrat. When Gilbert died in 1934, the World-Herald became a Republican paper. The November 1910 midterm election during Howard Taft’s presidency also saw the election of the first Socialist to Congress, Victor Berger from Wisconsin. Omaha World-Herald, Sunday, March 31, 1912 In 1915 the Omaha Western Laborer fell afoul with the Omaha Labor Council leadership giving Max Dezettel from Kansas City the opportunity to start the Unionist, a weekly newspaper. David Coutts and William Castleman associated with the labor newspaper in 1916 but similarly fell into “warm” and “hot” exchanges and fell from union leadership favor. Castleman then sought his fortune in Chicago. The Omaha Daily Bee wrote on Nov. 28, 1918, “William Castleman, editor of The Unionist in Chicago, is passing the week with relatives in the city.” The newspaper was the social media of the day. William died in Chicago at the age of 89 in
July 1972. His Chicago Daily News obituary extolled his virtues: Labor movement leader; editor-publisher of the Unionist, Chicago’s first labor newspaper; retired in 1946. He became
interested in Senior Citizen issues. AARP was founded in 1958. In 1960, Castleman was the Midwest representative of the National League of Senior Citizens. He received several awards including from Mayor Richard Daley in 1969. He was president of the American Federation of Senior Citizens. His Omaha World-Herald obituary included the names of several relatives including the Bleicher family of Council Bluffs and Omaha. Incidentally, Nathan Yaffe, William’s printing partner, 1909-1915, died in Omaha in May 1971 at the age of 85. William’s daughter, Marian, born in 1921, graduated from the University of Chicago, was an editor for Viking and Dutton and worked with John Steinbeck, Jorge Luis Borges and Andrea Dworkin, among others. Marian married Ralph Skedgell. She became a Deacon of the Roxbury Congregational Church. In 1990 she contacted the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society for information about her father. Marian died in May 2007 at the age of 86 in Roxbury Connecticut. Her obituary reported a rich literary life as editor and author, and two surviving children. Each generation rewrites its history. Change is now so rapid that rewriting does not wait a generation. Witness the discovery of new documents, technologies and methodologies that transform understanding. For instance, in 1991 I published The Omaha Hebrew Club, 1892-1953: The Immigrant Search for Security, in Memories of the Jewish Midwest. I relied on the weekly Jewish Bulletin, Omaha Jewish Press, and the WorldHerald clipping file at the Douglas County Historical Society. Genealogybank, far superior, contains 442 items from 1894 to 1968. Chronicling America lists 52 items from 1894 to 1922. How these almost 500 newspaper articles modify what I wrote prior to the electronic revolution I leave to younger historians. In 1998 Lynda J. Mirvish and I wrote Nathan S. Yaffe and the Early Years of the Yaffe Printing Company. To some extent, this article is an update.