: Purely Commentary

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Tracing 'The Feet of the Messenger ...
The English-Jewish Press in America:
The Struggle for Proper Communication:

If we were to search for the world's first newspaper, and the
first reference to journalism, we might have to go back all the way
to the 52nd chapter of Isaiah, where we read:
"How beautiful upon the mountains

Are the feet of the Messenger of good tidings
That announceth peace . . . "

Tracing the treks of the feet of the Messenger, the student of
Jewish journalistic history will find evidence of many changes, of
resort to several languages, of regress and progress. This applies
to Jewries everywhere, and the Jews of America are not an ex-
ception to this rule.
As a matter of historical record, it is interesting -to note that
the first published Jewish periodical appeared in the Judaeo-Spanish
dialect of Ladino. It appeared in 1678 in Amsterdam as the Gazette
de Amsterdam. The second known Jewish periodical also appeared
in Amsterdam—this time in Yiddish, in the Judaeo-German Ivre
Teitch. It was the Distangish and Freitagish Courantin—the Tues-
day and Friday Courant that lasted 16 months.
In 1750 Moses Mendelssohn published his Hebrew weekly
Kohelet Musar which was part of the impetus for the revival of
Hebrew and as an anticipator of the Haskalah movement and its
Hebrew publications.
But before very long Yiddish assumed a dominant role as the
major factor in Jewish journalism—in the United States as well as
in Poland and in other European countries.
For a time, Ladino flourished in Spanish-Jewish communities,
but it had begun to decline and very little is left of it.
A Hebrew-characters Ladino newspaper appeared in the United
States from 1922 until 1948, when its publisher, Albert S. Torres,
abandoned his efforts as a result of the declining community of
Spanish Jews in the United States.

Now we are witnessing another tragedy—the rapid decline of
Yiddish in the United States.
In 1914, when the Jewish population of the United States
numbered approximately three million, there were ten daily Yiddish
newspapers in the U. S., and their combined circulation was 762,910.
Today, with a population of 5,500,000, there are only two Yiddish
daily newspapers left in the U. S., and their total circulation,
countrywide, is less than 140,000.
The place originally occupied by the Yiddish press is now
being filled by the English-Jewish weekly newspapers, and the
challenge it must meet is in great measure the challenge that is
hurled today at the national Jewish organizations which speak for
American Jewry.
In the.past decade, more than ever before—even more than
in the early 1920s when there was fear of a cultural and spiritual
decline in Jewry—emphasis in public discussions has been on the
problems involved in retaining Jewish loyalties among our youth
and in linking them closely with Jewish communities everywhere.
This objective is obtainable only through proper communication
between Jewries, and the major instrument for such communica-
tion is the Jewish press. The English-Jewish press in America
is the only such element available for the fusing of Jewish
interests and for an appreciation of Jewish values.
The relative strength of the English-Jewish press will be the
measuring rod by which to judge the strength of the community
it serves. The manner in which the national movements will show
their appreciation of this fact and will assist in securing a com-
munity response to the English-Jewish press will react in the ulti-
mate to the strength of American Jewry.
*
*
What is the status of the English-Jewish press in the United

States?

A brief history of it will assist in understanding its position.
The first English-Jewish periodical published in English in the
U.S. was The Occident and American Jewish Advocate which made
its appearance in Philadelphia in April 1843 under the editorship
of the able Rabbi Isaac Leeser of Congregation Mikveh Israel. The
Occident, about which Rabbi Leeser reported that "we circulate
scarcely above 510," for 25 years struggled to advance Jewish ideals
and to clarify religious issues. But The Occident, like earlier
periodicals which appeared both in English and in German, was a
monthly publication„
The. first American English-Jewish weekly newspaper was The
Asmonean, which was published in New York by Robert Lyons in
1949. From that year, therefore, begins the history of the Jewish
weekly press in America printed in the English language.
The Asmonean, a "family journal of commerce, politics, reli-
gion and literature," lasted only nine years. Before it suspended
publication it added occasional German supplements. These were
indications of the prevalence of German as the language used by
Jews in the United States at that time. But the Asmonean's appear.
ance marked the introduction of an important factor in American
journalism—the English-Jewish press—which today is acknowledged
as one of the most powerful instruments for good in American
and Jewish life.
There were approximately 50,000 Jews in the U. S. in the year
of the birth of the English-Jewish press. New York and Phila-
delphia were the.largest centers of Jewish population. The first
English-Jewish monthly periodical was issued in Philadelphia, while
New York saw the birth of the first English-Jewish weekly—Robert
Lyon's The Asmonean.
A new cultural center was rising, hOwever, in Cincinnati, where
Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise was laying the foundation for Hebrew
Union College and the Reform synagogue movement. In 1854, Rabbi
Wise founded the oldest surviving Jewish weekly. He then called
it The Israelite and in 1874 it assumed its present name of The
American Israelite.

- I,

4,

Early beginnings in Jewish population expansion in America
are evidenced by the fact that an English-Jewish weekly, Jewish
Times and Observer, edited by M. S. Levy and William Saalburg,
was published in San Francisco from 1855 to 1905.
•
Another English-Jewish weekly, The Jewish Messenger, estab-
lished in New York in 1857, was absorbed by The American Hebrew

in 1903. The latter, for many years among the more popular
weeklies, has changed publishers and editors many times in the
last 25 years and has disappeared a few years ago with the Brooklyn
Jewish Examiner into the American Examiner. In their day, the
Reform Advocate, established by the late Rabbi Emil Hirsch, in

English-Jewish Press: Measuring Rod for
Judging Our Communities' Strength

Chicago; the Hebrew Standard and the Jewish Tribune were impor-
tant Jewish periodicals. They are no longer in existence.
- But, the field itself has become vastly expanded. There are,
today, 45 English-Jewish weeklies, appearing in 40 cities in 26
states. They are a vital part of the great American Jewish com-
munity. They are awaited with the keenest interest by hundreds of
thousands of Jews and the slogan "It Happens Every Friday" suits
their appearance very well. They represent the most important link
between world Jewry and the Jews of America. This English-Jewish
press is the spiritual guardian of Judaism in America.
Without this press, American Jewry would be totally unin-
formed about happenings throughout the world in Jewish com-
munities. The major Jewish news agency, the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency, provides these papers with the vital news, and some news-
papers, following the pioneering efforts of The Detroit Jewish
News, now receive JTA cables by direct teletype. JTA also pro-
vides these newspapers with important features, as part of the
agency's services, and there is a subsidiary feature and news
service, the Seven Arts Feature Syndicate. JTA's editor is Boris
Smolar. Seven Arts' editor is Nathan Ziprin. Eleazar Lipsky is

president of the newly-organized board of the JTA and Victor
Bienstock is JTA's managing director.
The American Jewish Press Association is the professional

organization of 30 of the English-Jewish weekly newspapers. During
the first 12 of its 15 years of existence it functioned as the
American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, and for the

first ten years this writer was its orgarizing president.
What is the quality of this press? How effective are the

English-Jewish weekly newspapers?

No other press has been attacked as much, misunderstood as

much, as these newspapers. Yet, they represent the major public
trust in Jewish life in America. Eliminate the Jewish press, and
there is nothing left to link U. S. Jewry with world Jewry, to edu-
cate the youth, to keep their elders aware of what is transpiring in
Jewish ranks, to provide them with information about Israel.
*
*
*
Why, then, are these newspapers maligned and misunderstood?
The criticisms stern from the fact that these periodicals began
as family journals. In the communities where they are published,
their readers needed to be kept aware of what was happening among
themselves. They craved for Jewish social contacts. They wanted
to know who went where, whose children reached Bar Mitzvah age,

who were betrothed and married. These newspapers published the
social news, and the unrealistic, instead of encouraging the pub-
lishers to strive for the highest Jewish journalistic standards, as
many of the weekly newspapers now do, began to attack them with
such opprobrious references as "shmuss gazette" and other terms.
Meanwhile, even by providing the social news, these newspapers
became valuable media for keeping the communities together, for
the solidification of Jewish life. If not for the interest that was
kept alive in the social life of Jews in many communities, espe-
cially in the smaller ones, there might have been such an exten-
sive assimilation that the situation would today become hopeless.
Instead, Jewish communities have been strengthened, there has
been built up, through the inspiration of these newspapers, a
generosity 'unmatched anywhere, by any other people, and to the
English-Jewish newspapers goes major credit for these attain-
ments. Meanwhile, in addition to serving the social needs of their
communities, these newspapers published the JTA and other
available news—within the means of their available space—and
often published literary articles, thus filling a great need.
Some of these papers provide exceptionally good news cover-
age. Others are not as effective. In their totality, however, they
serve an inestimable and irreplaceable service.
*
But there is another reason for the abuse hurled at these

papers, and this one is an indictment of the national Jewish organi-
Izations and of their staffs of public relations men. This is the tragic

situation:
While approximately 40 per cent of the Jews in the United
States reside in New York City the great metropolis does not have
an English-Jewish 'newspaper of merit. The only one in existence
barely scratches the surface. It has been so hard to reach out in
this vast community that only the Yiddish press exerts a real
influence. Except, therefore, for the remaining small minority of
Yiddish readers, the Jews of New York de for their major
Jewish facts upon either the New York Time or the several other
I New York non-Jewish dailies.
Perhaps it is primarily as a result of this condition that the
publicity directors of national organizations has' made it their
major goals to strive for "coverage" in the N York Times. Once
they had gotten a story into the Times, they, didn't give a hoop for

By Philip
Slomovitz

and every man able to read, all is
safe." That's how it will be with
American Jewry: when every
family reads in the language it
understands, in the English-
Jewish press, the links between
all Jewries will become inde-
structible.
Jefferson had something else
to say about the press in gen-
eral. He declared, (Writings of
Jefferson, Vol. VI, page 55):
"Were it left to me to decide
whether we should have a gov-
ernment without newspapers, or
newspapers without a govern-
ment, I should not hesitate a mo-
ment to prefer the latter."
In this lies the chief admoni-
tion to Jewish communities every-
where: be sure you have a strong
press; then you'll survive; with-
out them you are in danger. In
the instance of American Jewry,
in view of the tragic passing of
the Yiddish press, the English-
Jewish press is certain to be one
of its major instruments for sur-
vival.
Some unrealistic American
Jews frequently make compari-
sons. They express the wish that
the English-Jewish press in
American should become like the
Jewish Chronicle of London—as
if the latter were the end all
and be all of everything in Jewish
life. The fact is that many
American Jewish weeklies are
exactly like their London coun-
terpart. They cover every part of
Jewish- life and strive to be in-
formative. What the blind critics
fail to realize is that the London
Jewish Chronicle serves all of
British Jewry, while the very
many English-Jewish weeklies in
America serve very man distinc-
tive communities and are supple-
mented by very constructive and
culturally rich monthly maga-
zines that serve a better purpose
than the London Jewish Chronicle
ever could hope to do.
This writer's task is not to
evaluate the monthly cultural

magazines but the weekly news-
papers and in this light he re-

jects the flirtations with the Lon-
don confrere.
(This essay—except for the
last two paragraphs--appears
in the current issue of The
Jewish Journalist, published in
London, England, by the World
Union of Jewish Journalists.)

England Gives Israel
OK to Extradite
Kidnaped Boy's Uncle

(Direct JTA Teletype Wire
to The Jewish News)

LONDON — The Divisional
Court here, presided over by
Lord Parker of Waddington,
Lord Chief Justice of England,
Tuesday upheld the right of the
government of Israel to demand
the extradition of S h a 1 o m
and other medium. If they could show their balebatim that they Shtarkes, 22-year-old Israeli re-
ligious teacher.
made the Times, they felt they had earned their spurs.
The latter, held in prison
This striving for space in the Times to the exclusion of the
Jewish press has become so repulsive that it has assumed the without bail since last August,
proportions of a mania. As a result, the English-Jewish press has is charged with having kid-
naped his nephew, 10-year-old
been neglected, and the very people who should have made the
English-Jewish press their major concern looked upon it with Yossele Shumacher, b e c a u s e
Yossele's
grandfather feared
contempt—because they had a Times to aspire to.
the child would not not receive
*
*
•
*
But the important Jewish news from everywhere is to be found an education sufficiently based
traditional orthodoxy.
in the daily papers only when there is a controversy or a tragedy. in The
case came before the
Only the Jewish papers provide total coverage. By not cultivating court on
an application by
this medium, the Jewish public relations men have erred—and Shtarkes' defense
for a writ of
sinned. They have abused an instrument they should have helped
habeas corpus, claiming that
to= strengthen. They remain the sinners.
Israel had no jurisdiction over
Meanwhile, the English-Jewish press is struggling. Some papers
where the crime is
must depend for their year-round sustenance upon income from Jerusalem,
alleged to
occurred. Lord
special holiday issues. A few are able to hold their own without Parker was have
joined on the bench
dependence upon special issues.
by two Queen's Bench judges,
. As a result of the difficulties encountered by many of the Sir John Ashworth and Sir
English-Jewish weeklies, several have been acquired by community Fenton - Atkinson.
Federations. The papers in Philadelphia, Pa., Newark, N.J., San
Rejecting an application for
Francisco, Calif., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Portland, Ore., are examples bail
for Shtarkes, the court re-
of papers being turned over to communities.
manded the young teacher back
Such a trend is deplorable. It is certain to curtail freedom of to Brixton Prison, permitting
expression and it is hoped that it will be avoided. It can be pre- the defense to appeal the case
vented only if the communities, if the national organizations, will to the House of Lords. How-
give the English-Jewish press the encouragement and support it ever, the court stated it would
deserves—while the papers retain the vital independence of remain- grant an application for an
ing privately owned.
early hearing before the House
*
* *
of Lords, so that Shtarkes
One of the great early Presidents of the United States, Thomas would not be imprisoned any
Jefferson, said more than 150 years ago: "When the press is free longer than necessary.

