Transatlantic Russian Jewishness: Ideological Voyages of the Yiddish Daily Forverts in the First Half of the Twentieth Century by Gennady Estraikh (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Transatlantic Russian Jewishness: Ideological Voyages of the Yiddish Daily Forverts in the First Half of the Twentieth Century by Gennady Estraikh Tobias Brinkmann Gennady Estraikh. Transatlantic Russian Jewishness: Ideological Voyages of the Yiddish Daily Forverts in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2020. 346 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009421000313 Within a few years after its founding in 1897, the Yiddish daily Forverts (Forward) emerged as America's largest Jewish daily newspaper. In 1910, the [End Page 477] paper's circulation crossed the 100,000 threshold, increasing further to over 250,000 during the 1920s. Yiddish papers in different parts of the world reprinted Forverts articles, greatly enhancing its influence. The Forverts's rise owed much to the vision of its editor and cofounder Abraham Cahan, who arrived in New York in 1882 as an immigrant from Lithuania. He designed the Forverts as an indispensable companion for its readers. The paper provided many services, ranging from Cahan's famous advice column, the Bintel Brief, to English classes and vaccinations. Cahan was an overbearing editor who did not tolerate dissent in the paper's newsroom. Yet he managed to attract and retain talented writers and scholars. Other leftist Yiddish papers frequently attacked Cahan as a capitalist for his moderate socialist views. He also faced much criticism for his lacking enthusiasm for the Zionist cause. Yet through the Forverts, Cahan and his contributors influenced Jewish public opinion well beyond America's shores during the first half of the twentieth century. In the late 1920s, after Congress passed restrictive immigration laws, the paper's readership began to drop. In later decades suburbanization and the passing of the immigrant generation contributed to the decline of Yiddish publishing. In 1983 the Forverts switched to a weekly format and added an English section. An overarching study of the history of the Forverts remains a lacuna. A superficially researched biography of Cahan by Seth Lipsky (The Rise of Abraham Cahan [New York: Schocken, 2013]) leaves many gaps and is marred by the author's political views. Only parts of Cahan's five-volume memoir, Bleter fun meyn lebn (Pages of my life), published during the late 1920s, are available in (a flawed) translation. In most surveys of American Jewish history, Cahan and the Forverts feature in the chapters covering the period before 1914. Cahan is better known for his English-language literary works than for his achievements as innovative media entrepreneur and influential political voice. This background explains why Gennady Estraikh's well-researched study of the ideological journeys of the Forverts and its main contributors between 1914 and the 1950s fills a gap. The formative earlier period from the 1880s to the 1920s has been covered by Tony Michels in his 2009 study A Fire in Their Hearts about Yiddish socialists in New York. Readers benefit from Estraikh's detailed knowledge of the complex and fluctuating scenes of different socialist, Bundist, and Zionist groups in and beyond the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. The study draws on the coverage of the Forverts and several other papers as well as extensive archival research. The eight chronologically organized chapters examine different issues that dominated the paper's coverage. One chapter deals with the paper's language policy. Earlier than others, Cahan understood that Yiddish would have to yield to English. In the early 1920s, he instructed his authors to use a simpler colloquial Yiddish. This move illustrates Cahan's pragmatism and willingness to revisit ideological positions. He derided Yiddishists who criticized this move as "impractical people" (99). Estraikh notes that at home Cahan and his wife preferred to speak Russian, a language he associated with Bildung. Cahan also showed flexibility in plotting the paper's political course, albeit without sacrificing his commitment to socialism. Estraikh devotes much attention [End Page 478] to the Forverts coverage of the Soviet Union. One of several intriguing episodes presented in this study involves Leon Trotsky's brief dalliance with the Forverts in early 1917. Following a loud shouting match in Cahan's office over the paper's support of the American war effort, a furious Trotsky walked out. In the same...