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Yiddish Newspaper Still Alive
and Well |
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At the centre of the
Yiddish mini-revival is a
newspaper that is over 100 years
old
named;
Forverts.
Based in New York, the Forverts
publishes a weekly Yiddish
Newspaper that is read by a few
thousand and also publishes
plenty of
other
material on the
internet
including
100s
of
videos in Yiddish and
Yiddish audio. The newspaper
was founded in 1897 at a time of
large Jewish immigration to the
USA. The paper
was
originally firmly
Left-Wing and supported causes
outside of the mainstream of
American society. The reason for
this was that most Jewish
immigrants became part of the
working-class whom worked mainly
in factories. These
Yiddish-speaking Jews felt
excluded from power and
organised in trade unions and
Socialist political parties. The
newspaper was part of this
culture and was an important
force in the Jewish political
scene for decades.
During the 1910s to 1930s the
newspaper was at its peak and
sometimes would sell over
200,000 copies a day. The paper
lost popularity as the new
generations spoke English and
not Yiddish and by the 1960s
the paper was selling
only
50,000
daily. By the
1980s the paper
reduced its
editions to only
once a week and the
English edition became more
popular than the Yiddish one.
However unlike other Yiddish
newspaper s
that closed down during the
1970s and 80s, the Forverts has
remained strong and now is very
much at the centre of the
Yiddish speaking revival among
non-Haredi Jews and others
interested in the language.
Due to pressure from
advertising and also a desire by
some to follow a Liberal agenda
like the NY Times, the Forverts
is no longer a paper reporting
and supporting causes from a
left-wing agenda, rather its
more Centralist. Although due to
many new Yiddish speakers being
Leftist the readers are in
general more Liberal-Socialist
than other newspapers.
The journalists at the
Forverts and those working for
the newspaper in other way s
tend to be highly educated and
while the number of readers is
only a few thousand for the
Yiddish edition, these writers
and readers are very committed
to the newspaper and the paper
has a solid future.
The importance of Foverts
cannot be underestimated as it
comes from a time when millions
spoke Yiddish in the USA and
100,000s read the newspaper and
it continues to be published
into this new era of Yiddish as
a language.
Here are Links to
their material.
(1)
Newspaper Website
(2)
Yiddish Audio
(3)
Youtube Channel |
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