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Yiddish
speaking immigrants formed the milieu of the hugely successful socialist daily
Forverts (Forward). Its editorial columns and bylined articles reflected and shaped the attitudes and values of its readership. Profound
admiration of Russian literature and culture did not mitigate the writers'
criticism of the czarist and Soviet regimes.
List of contents
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. World War I
The Collapse of the Socialist International
The Anti-Russian Syndrome
The Zimmerwald Conference
The Phantom of Internationalism
The Effect of the War Debates
Chapter 2. The 1917 Revolutions
Russia Can Be Loved
Joys and Problems
The Bolshevik Revolution
The Split
Chapter 3. Cultural Debates
A Letter from Waco
Advocates and Critics of Yiddish Education
Cahan's Summing Up
Chapter 4. Raphael Abramovitch's Menshevik Voice in the Forverts
In the Vortex of Revolution
Between Two Internationals
Communists' Most Hated Menshevik
The Moscow Trial of 1931
Chapter 5. The Outpost in Berlin
The Bureau
Jacob Lestschinsky
David Bergelson
The End of Yiddish Berlin
Chapter 6. Jews on the Land
Palestine or Crimea?
Zalman Wendroff's Accounts
Abraham Cahan's Soviet Journey
Sholem Asch-An Unwanted Guest
Chapter 7. Between Hate and Hope
Challenges of the Time
The Stalin Constitution
Birobidzhan
Chapter 8. World War II
Exit from Europe
The Soviet Delegation
Back to the Tradition
Epilogue
Bibliography
About the author
Gennady Estraikh is a Clinical Professor at New York University. He received a doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1996, and has worked at the Oxford Institute of Yiddish Studies and London University. He is Director of the Shvidler Project for the History of the Jews of the Soviet Union at NYU, and Senior Scholar at the Moscow Higher School of Economics.
Summary
In the early decades of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of Yiddish speaking immigrants actively participated in the American Socialist and labour movement. They formed the milieu of the hugely successful daily Forverts (Forward). This book focuses on the newspaper's reaction to the political developments in the home country.
Additional text
“Estraikh’s detailed study of the longstanding Yiddish newspaper,
the Forverts, draws on many primary and secondary sources. He examines in
depth its ideological development under the editorial leadership of flamboyant personalities
such as Abraham Cahan, Moyshe Olgin, David Eynhorn, and David Bergelson. The
book is well written and captivating, particularly in the way it dramatically
weaves stories and anecdotes relating to the paper’s editors and contributors. Most
importantly, it reveals how the Forverts was a mirror to the
acculturation and assimilation process of many Yiddish speaking Jewish
Americans. … This work will be a benchmark for future studies not only on the
history of the Forverts and its editors, but also on the history of the
Jewish left and Jewish intellectual ideas, as well as a standard for studying
the evolution from Jewish affiliation with secular socialism to Zionistic
religiosity.”
—David Levy, Lander College for Women, AJL Reviews
