Tuesday, November 10, 2015

S.A.M. hold wand breaking ceremony

The Society of American Magicians held their traditional wand breaking ceremony at Houdini's grave last Thursday. The S.A.M. website reports:

On November 5, 2015 A delegation of S.A.M. members gathered to reenact the wand breaking ceremony created by Harry Houdini. This was the 89th Anniversary of his passing (10/31/1926 – 23 Cheshvan 5687), as determined by the Jewish calendar.
L-R: Jordan Linker, Steve Gross, Lou Sarofsky, Ed Martin, George Schindler, 
John Bohannon, Rich Cohn, Tom Noreika (Photo by Pat Colby)

Houdini was president of the S.A.M. from 1917 until his death in 1926. The S.A.M. now looks after his gravesite.

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5 comments:

  1. UnknownNovember 10, 2015 at 7:42 AM

    Very good to see they are still honoring Houdini

    ReplyDelete
  2. DAVID SALTMANNovember 10, 2015 at 8:04 AM

    Why do they do it by the Jewish calendar?

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  3. Dorothy Dietrich and Dick BrookzNovember 10, 2015 at 8:48 AM

    Because magicians of the Parent Assembly had used it as a publicity stunt for themselves that brought hundreds of kooks and destructive people to dress up and attend it on Halloween that brought damage to the Houdini grave and the entire cemetery.

    The management of the cemetery then forbid them to do it on Halloween to protect the integrity of the cemetery. Members of the Parent Assembly then retaliated by unfairly attacking by name the integrity of the administrator of the cemetery in the New York Times.

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  4. John CoxNovember 10, 2015 at 10:14 AM

    D&D are right in that they don't do it on Halloween anymore because they don't want to draw a crowd. It's a private ceremony. It used to be that they would select a random date in November. This is the first time I've heard the date referenced as being related to the Jewish calendar.

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  5. Melanie SilverNovember 10, 2015 at 10:45 AM

    Because he was Jewish and burried in a Jewish cemetery

    ReplyDelete