When the Titanic set sail from the English port of Southampton to New York City, it had on board hundreds of prospective immigrants hoping to settle in the U.S. permanently; among them were Sinai and Miriam Kantor, originally from Vitebsk. The Kantors were just two of some 80 Jews aboard the ship, including Congressman Isidor Straus of New York who, together with his brother Nathan, had founded Macy’s department store; the Titanic even had its own kosher kitchen. While the Kantors were not nearly so wealthy as Straus, they were far better-off than most Jewish passengers on the vessel, as Sinai Kantor’s Hebrew watch—recently put up for auction—suggests. Menachem Wecker writes:
Sinai Kantor . . . took with him [on the Titanic] a Swiss-made pocket watch embossed on the back with a seated Moses holding the Hebrew-inscribed Ten Commandments. The timepiece, a symbol of Kantor’s Jewish faith, survived. Kantor did not. He was among 1,503 passengers who died on the Titanic’s maiden voyage. . . . When women and children were prioritized for rescue, Miriam, who was twenty-four, survived in lifeboat number 12.
On its face, the seawater-rusted watch, which is three inches in diameter, contains the Hebrew letters corresponding to the numbers one through twelve, though the watch hands are missing. On the back, a muscular Moses, clad in biblical garb, holds the . . . Ten Commandments in front of five palm trees and an arch with Doric columns. . . . [A]n accessory of this sort would have been a posh, luxury item, which was intended to be conspicuous, said Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University. . . .
In coming generations, many Jews would wear jewelry adorned with Stars of David or otherwise publicly demonstrate that they were Jewish. In much the same way, Kantor clearly wanted everybody to know he was proud to be Jewish, Sarna said.
Read more on Religion News Service: https://religionnews.com/2018/08/21/a-pocket-watch-turns-back-the-clock-on-jewish-life-aboard-the-titanic/