Jerusalem Post

ByJOANIE MARGULIES

Isidor Straus, the Jewish businessman who co-founded Macy’s, drowned with his wife in the Titanic disaster. His gold pocket watch was found with them, marking their tragic end in freezing water.

The pocket watch of a Titanic first-class passenger and Jewish businessman who perished with his wife along with the ship has sold at auction for $2.3 million, according to the auction house responsible for the sale, Henry Aldridge & Son Auctioneers.
Isidor Straus, a Bavarian-born Jewish businessman who co-founded the Macy’s department store franchise, was sailing on the Titanic with his wife, Ida when the ship infamously hit an iceberg and led to the death of more than 1,500 people. The business tycoon’s gold pocket watch was on his person as he and his beloved drowned together in freezing waters.

The watch, which took its final tick on April 15, 1912, was recovered with the couple. It was an 18-carat Jules Jurgensen watch, engraved and gifted to him for his 43rd birthday in 1888. That same year, he became a partner at Macy’s.

The watch’s $2.3 million sale made it the highest price paid for Titanic memorabilia, according to auctioneers.
Other Titanic treasures were auctioned off on Saturday, including a letter written by Ida on her journey, a passenger list, and a gold medal awarded to the RMS Carpathia’s crew by survivors, auctioneers said in a statement. In total, the auction yielded a total of $3.92 million, according to the Henry Aldridge & Son Auctioneers.
 SMS Titanic in Belfast 1912 (credit: PICRYL)
Straus declined a lifeboat, allowing other men to go first
Historians recall that Straus was offered a seat on a lifeboat due to his age, but declined to allow other men to go first. Ida refused to leave her husband's side, with witnesses stating they saw the couple holding each other as the ship sank. 

The couple were among the few first-class patrons to perish in the sinking. 
The deaths of Ida Straus and Isidor Straus aboard the Titanic struck a particular chord in New York’s immigrant Jewish community, especially in the Lower East Side, according to archives acquired from The New York Public Library (NYPL). They were already revered for their philanthropy, including support of the Educational Alliance, and in death, their story fast became legendary in Yiddish newspapers, songs, and prayer books, the archives show. 
The couple came to symbolize courage, loyalty, and communal values, and their loss was mourned not just as a personal tragedy, but as a moment of shared cultural meaning for Eastern European Jewish immigrants forging a life in America. Their deaths share a story of Jewish family connections and loyalty, even in a couple's darkest moments.