8 | JULY 22 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

continued from page 6

Jews themselves. The first 
Jewish weeklies published 
by German Jews (who 
pioneered so much of 
modern Jewish thought 
and politics) were, like 
most German Jews, liberal, 
enlightened, Reform, pro-
gressive. The Allgemeine 
Zeitung des Judentums, 
which published its first 
issue in Leipzig in 1837, 
became the model for 
liberal Jewish weeklies in 
London, Vienna, Paris, 
Budapest and New York. 
Though published in dif-
ferent languages, all these 
newspapers shared three 
aims: to provide a clearing 
house where Jewish com-
munities around the world 
could exchange ideas and 
share successes and fail-
ures; to instill a sense of 
Jewish pride and a instill a 
connection with the Jewish 
community; and to advo-
cate for and, later, to cele-
brate Jews attaining equal 
citizenship and access into 
mainstream society.
Russian Jews followed 
suit a generation later. 
Like Russian Jewry itself, 
Russian Jewish newspapers 
were more diverse than 
their Western counter-
parts in terms of language 
— Hebrew, Yiddish and 
Ladino in addition to the 
many vernacular languages 
of Eastern Europe — and 
political and religious out-
looks: Socialism, Zionism 
(of all varieties), Bundism, 
Modern Orthodox and 
even the Hasidic and 
ultra-Orthodox press. By 
the turn of the 20th centu-
ry, Jews living in major cit-
ies like Warsaw, Budapest, 

Vienna or Odessa, could 
choose from hundreds of 
Jewish daily and weekly 
papers written in a dozen 
languages, with views 
ranging from secular to 
ultra-Orthodox and from 
communist to conservative.

A CHORUS OF VOICES
No less important, Jewish 
newspapers have been 
an invaluable venue for 
readers to encounter a 
tapestry of Jewish voices 
and outlooks that often 
engage with one another 
in constructive debate. In 
this regard, now and in the 
past, Jewish newspapers 
have varied in quality. 
At their worst, Jewish 
newspapers targeted a rel-
atively narrow audience 
with a one-dimensional 
view of the world and 
were reluctant to ruffle the 
feathers of less open-mind-
ed readers to the point 
of stifling the very free 
expression and exchange 
that made this genre so 
engaging and beneficial to 
the Jewish community as a 
whole. This was often the 
case of many (though by 
no means all) Orthodox 
newspapers, whose pages 
devolved into propaganda, 
ad hominem attacks and 
fearmongering. Often such 
newspapers survived only 
as long a wealthy Jewish 
patron who shared the 
view of the targeted reader-
ship was willing to under-
write the cost of what was 
typically a finite venture of 
limited value. 
At their best, Jewish 
newspapers were a polit-
ically and religiously 

neutral space whose only 
prerequisite for publishing 
was elegance, nuance and 
substance; where all Jewish 
writers, especially those 
who were ostracized or 
marginalized by the tradi-
tional elements within the 
Jewish community, could 
express unconventional, 
novel and even controver-
sial and heretical views. 
In more than a few cases, 
a column or essay in a 
Jewish paper was the place 
where a view that started 
out radical found an audi-
ence and stirred discus-
sion and debate en route 
to entering the psyche of 
the Jewish mainstream. 
Jewish authors like Sholem 
Aleichem, Y.L. Peretz, and 
Haim Nachman Bialik — 
to name a few — were first 
published in the pages of 
the Jewish press. Without 
this medium to connect 
them to their readers, 
these authors would have 
become so widely known 
to us only posthumously, 
if at all. 
Today, Jewish newspa-
pers are a window not only 
into the Jewish present but 
also the Jewish past. Spend 
an afternoon browsing the 
Detroit Jewish News archive 
(djnfoundation.org) or if 
you are more adventurous, 
check out a website called 
Historical Jewish press at 
www.nli.org.il/en/discover/
newspapers/jpress, and you 
will see what I mean. 

Professor Howard Lupovitch 

is associate professor of history 

and director of the Cohn-Haddow 

Center for Judaic Studies at Wayne 

State University.

U.N. Links Terrorism
with Antisemitism

(JNS) The U.N. General Assembly 
acknowledged a link between 
terrorism and antisemitism in its 
recently passed Global Counter-
Terrorism Strategy (GCTS) — for 
the first time — a move that has 
been applauded by pro-Israel and 
Jewish organizations.
 The GCTS says it “Recognizes 
with deep concern the overall rise 
in instances of discrimination, 
intolerance and violence, regard-
less of the actors, directed against 
members of religious and other 
communities in various parts of 
the world, including cases moti-
vated by Islamophobia, antisemi-
tism, Christianophobia and prej-
udice against persons of any other 
religion or belief.”
 Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad 
Erdan, noted Israelis recently 
“sat in bomb shelters because of 
Hamas’ relentless terror attacks.
” 

Correction

In “Building Upon Great 
Success,” (July 8, page 42), the 
caption of the photo on page 43 
was inaccurate. The photo did 
not show the current generation 
running Edward Rose & Sons, 
but showed Warren Rose, the 
late Irving and the late Sheldon 
Rose, as well as Leslie Rose, who 
is retired.

