One of the rare individuals at the Forward addressed formally as "mister" or the politically correct (for the Forward's socialist history) khaver, meaning comrade and friend, was Louis Eliezer Katz, the paper's last typesetter. Katz's career found him working with hot leaden Yiddish type as seen in the image above, first for Paris' post war Yiddish press, where he emigrated after surviving the Holocaust in his native Poland and then in his chosen New York City, having arrived here as a former child survivor and refugee, in 1962. Adaptable as ever, with the paper's shift to digital, Mr. Katz set the paper's news and stories by computer and remained on the job, helping publish reams of materials still arriving in handwritten format, until retirement in 2013. Forward writers depended on (the kindness of) typesetters as the final gateway before reaching their readers, and It was common for the pair of them to develop deep working relationships. Katz was no exception, having been chosen to set type for the Forward's Nobel prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer. " Recognized, in part, for a fading journalistic form, the petite, though boisterous ketsele, (Yiddish for kitten) as he was known among his fans, was honored in 2017 by the City Lore Place Matters project for his historic contributions to Yiddish cultural production in the city.

A bilingual Yiddish-English historic sign, all about Mr. Katz, was temporarily placed at Strauss Square, nearby the Forward's historic East Broadway building. In the life of the Yiddish typesetter, it was a moment for sure. The New York Times wrote about it and his comrades back at the office wrote about it, hailing the suddenly "famous" Mr. Katz.

The city, and East Broadway in particular, has a long storied history of printing Yiddish newspapers, and the paper itself occasionally even took to celebrating them. In a shining moment in 2007, Mr. Katz the typesetter became a writer with a published personal essay in Yiddish. "If ever I write my memoirs," Katz wrote, "my arrival at the Forward is an important chapter."

"In 1961, my late mother Mala and I decided to apply to emigrate to America. We were then living in Paris, France. I'd long dreamed of working at the Forward," Mr. Katz recalled in his own Forverts article. "The Paris Yiddish paper Undzer Shtime (Our Voice) where I was then working, received the Forverts and I read to absorb their style. "

Applying for post-war immigration through the Kennedy administration's plan to ease Europe's refugee influx, the Katzes arrived in the city in April 1962 aboard the SS United States where they were helped to resettle by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Not only was Mr. Katz's ship's name symbolic of his immigrant's dream, but so too was his arrival here, near the Jewish Passover holiday symbolizing freedom from enslavement, something the Katzes had personally experienced in Nazi Europe.

Placed, as were many post-Holocaust refugees, in a city hotel, the Katzes settled temporarily into the West Village's Broadway Central Hotel, formerly the Grand Central Hotel, seen above.

His first morning in the city, Katz, a member of the Jewish Labor Bund, the historic, international union of Jewish workers, and a political science graduate of Warsaw's university, headed uptown. There, on East 78th Street, housed in the city's celebrated Fish House, was the local Bund's offices in what had become the Atran House for Jewish Culture.. And there Katz recalled being warmly greeted and reassured about finding work in his field. "In a country where promises and affection don't cost a thing, offering reassurance is surely a \[mitsve],(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitzvah)" he wrote, moved by their kindness. He left the Atran House, as the building housing several progressive Yiddish cultural and labor organizations, a homey cafeteria and the Bund archive was called, feeling hopeful and with the contact information for the Yiddish typesetter's union representative.

Katz's Yiddish typography contacts helped him navigate the union's demands for membership. While the city was the hub of Yiddish publications, it was no longer publishing as many, and work in the field, Katz quickly learned, was actually hard to find. Meanwhile, feeling a good deal less hopeful than before, Mr. Katz found housing in Brooklyn nearby other recent European refugee immigrants and set about heading to union headquarters daily in search of work. At the time, Typographical Union Local 6 was located near Union Square, not far from the corner shown in the image above. His nights were spent learning English.

The Katzes settled into their first New York home on Howard Ave near Madison in Bushwick, not far from the site of this structure. From here he'd head out to the Typographical local's union offices nearby Union Square where there were crowds of folks like him, actively seeking work, even if only for a day's worth. Mr. Katz's spoken English language skills were still limited, and at that time, he was still able to make his way around the union hall in Yiddish. Most importantly, to obtain union membership, Katz was told he'd need a stable home address.

Having secured a temporary gig, Katz was then invited to take his Yiddish typesetting exam in the Forward building, on the 10th floor. With his job prospects looking up, he was able to move to Ocean Avenue, Brooklyn, nearby this apartment in the image above.

There on the 10th floor composing room, the foreman greeted him, and Mr. Katz recalled settling in at linotype machine no. 9. "Linotype no.9 was a lucky machine," he noted, "because I passed the exam and received a good recommendation for further work." To pass the exam, one needed to type speedily and cleanly. "I don't recall the title of the piece I was given to typeset, but I recall it had to do with Lomonosov," Katz recalled decades later. Not long after passing his exam, Mr. Katz received his union card and was able to work part time at the Forward, eventually becoming a full time typesetter there, and foreman of the Forward's union shop.

In time, Mr. Katz moved to Bayside Queens, near Cross Island Parkway. "There," he recalled "you could see the Throgs Neck Bridge."