(Jewish Group) How this newspaper kept Jews in touch after the 1906 earthquake
Just before dawn on April 18, 1906, San Francisco’s 410,000 residents were jolted awake by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake that reduced much of the city to rubble. Many of the surviving buildings were dynamited to stop the fires raging through the street.
Jacob Voorsanger, the rabbi of Congregation Emanu-El and publisher of The Emanu-El, a newspaper to which this publication traces its roots, described the immediate aftermath in the May 11 issue: “Within ten minutes everybody knew what had really happened — the fair city was practically destroyed. The subsequent conflagration only wiped out and put out of sight the horrible wounds inflicted by the earthquake. Scarcely a public or private building had escaped injury. The City Hall was an ugly pile of confused masonry; our noble temple Emanu-El showed its gaping wounds through roof and walls — not a structure in town but was turned and twisted into unsightly shapes by this awful calamity, and in the streets were the huddled, half-clad, fear-stricken masses, awaiting a repetition of the visitation, preparing for the last moment.”
One of the worst parts of the disaster was the complete lack of information. In an age before television and even radio — let alone smartphones and social media — and with the fledgling telephone system destroyed, there was no way for people to let their friends and loved ones know they were alive.
No way except for the newspapers.
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