Hebrew University of Jersualem has apologized for saying that a donor who bequeathed it more than $100,000 was a homeless woman in New York, the Daily News reports. Rather, Ida Fischer was an Austrian Jewish refugee who fled Vienna with her mother in 1938 after the Nazis killed her father.
Newspapers around the world had initially quoted a Hebrew University spokesman as saying that the late donor had lived out of a shopping cart in Manhattan. In its article last week, The Jerusalem Post helpfully showed what a homeless person might look like, had the donor actually been homeless.
Terribly sorry about that, Ms. Fischer. Rest in peace.
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2 Responses to Sorry We Called You a Bag Lady. Thanks for the $100,000.
akprof - August 17, 2009 at 12:50 pm
What a neat story
greeneyeshade - August 17, 2009 at 1:43 pm
How on earth did Hebrew U. come up with a story like that? With nothing apparently to go on, such a story requires real imagination.