The men and women who founded the Jewish Daily Forward were not business people out to make a buck. They were socialist intellectuals and labor activists who wanted to create a new tribune for Yiddish-speaking workers. On January 30, 1897, they met in a rented hall on Orchard Street to make plans.
Unlike the leading Yiddish daily of the time, the politically conservative Yidishes Tageblat, the Forverts would not be privately owned. It would be the property of the Forward Association, a nonprofit, cooperatively run governing body. Representatives from the Knee Pants Makers, Vest Makers, Brotherhood of Tailors and the United Hebrew Trades of Philadelphia joined the association. So, too, did socialist clubs like Voice of Labor, Women Workers’ Society and Lassalle Continuing Education Society. Their mission: “to hold high the banner of international class struggle” in Yiddish.
The Forverts entered a Yiddish newspaper market crowded with an ever-growing number of dailies, weeklies and monthlies. Many came and went within a matter of months. The Forverts itself suffered difficult times during its first few years. Nonetheless, it managed not only to survive but to triumph.
By 1903, the Forverts emerged as the most popular Yiddish daily in the country. Abraham Cahan, who returned to the editorship of the newspaper in that year, deserved much of the credit. He understood, better than most of his colleagues, the need to balance socialism with popular journalism.
Cahan possessed an unshakable commitment to the Jewish working class. “Workers of the World Unite” stood proudly on the masthead. Yet he also knew that the newspaper could not limit itself to political and union affairs if it wanted to reach the largest number of readers. It would have to keep the pulse of everyday life in its fullness. Crime stories, domestic disputes, personal tragedies, the wildly popular Bintel Brief advice column, literature both low and high and human-interest stories of all kinds, graced the pages of the Forverts.
It would be pointless to try to isolate which component — socialism or sensationalism — caused the newspaper’s success. Both deserve credit. Readers loved the Forverts because it entertained them and voiced their economic grievances. Cahan was on to something when he said that the Forverts “democratized reading.” It reached the least-educated elements and brought them into a new world of ideas about social justice. By its 20th anniversary, the newspaper’s circulation hovered around 200,000.
During its early years, the Forverts owed its existence to labor and socialist groups. When the Forverts had trouble paying its gas bill, the Workmen’s Circle opened its wallet. When printing costs grew formidable, Voice of Labor organized a masquerade ball to raise funds. More than 10,000 people attended the first one in 1898. Their inventive costumes affirmed the socialist cause. One woman sported a dress adorned with socialist newspapers. Another came as “the angel of social democracy.” Still others showed up as wounded strikers and evicted tenants.
After the Forverts became profitable, it repaid its debts to the labor movement. Between 1911 and 1915 alone, the Forverts donated more than $20,000 to unions, socialist groups and other left-wing newspapers. During strikes, it coordinated huge public fund-raising campaigns: $25,000 for the Furriers, $50,000 for the Ladies Waist Makers, $60,000 for the Cloak Makers.
Forverts staff members spoke at union rallies, raised money and covered labor events in close detail. Editorials, reportage, announcements and organizational reports filled the pages. “The workers, the great masses, feel a certain gratitude to this newspaper,” a union stalwart wrote in 1917. “This is the only source from which the workers get their information.” Sometimes the Forverts took the lead in planning strikes months in advance.
Bosses read the Forverts, too, and even reprinted its articles in their trade publications. After all, they needed to know what their enemies were up to.
The Forverts was a force to be reckoned with, not merely a newspaper. It was said that no union officer could win an election without its endorsement.
Any institution as strong as the Forverts was bound to engender opposition. The satirical weekly, Der Groyser Kundes, typically depicted the Forverts as an overstuffed fat cat wearing a top hat in the shape of the newspaper’s 10-story headquarters, the Lower East Side’s tallest building. For decades, communists branded the Forverts a traitor to the working class.
The criticism attested to the newspaper’s profound influence. Hundreds of thousands of workers read the newspaper, celebrated it and looked to it for leadership. Above all, the Forverts instilled a new social ethic among immigrant Jews, a belief in the duty of workers and their unions to create a just society freed from poverty and inequality.
Tony Michels is the George L. Mosse Associate Professor of American Jewish History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of “A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York” (Harvard University Press, 2005).
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It was a wonderful idea in its day. They helped the poor immigrants adjust to America. They brought the beautiful ideals of social justice to the attention of all. They made them laugh and cry with the stories in the Forward. Everyone read the Forward in Yiddish and discussed its contents loudly in their homes. I only wish I could read the archives if and when they become available.
So did the Forverts create a society freed from poverty and inequality? You must finish the story. I'll bet it completely failed
Adolph Held, my husband's uncle, was a New York socialist and I was told that he was very active in the garment worker's union as well as an editor of the Daily Forward. He died in the min 1950's. Does anybody have more information regarding uncle Adolph. I believe he was an Alderman in Brooklyn or Manhattan
I thought Adolph Held was the Publisher of The Forward. When my great-great grandfather, Avram Schonberg (one of the founders of The Forward) died suddenly while visiting relatives in Warsaw in 1923, Adolph Held sent a large banner of condolence. I have the photograph.
Sylvia, your husband's uncle was well-known in the Yiddish world. If you call a library such as YIVO or the Jewish Division of the New York Public Library, they should have no trouble locating information on him (in Yiddish) in the various lexicons of Yiddish writers. His entry in the Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur includes a bibliography for further articles about him.
To Faith Jones, Thanks for your response tomy query about Adolph Held. We remember him well as thee Held's were a close family. His brother was my husband's grandfather. We spent time with him in Tamiment and visited him in NY. However we did not have information regarding most of his various activities. Unfortuanately if most of the articles you mentioned are in Yiddish we are out of luck as neither Ted nor I read Yiddish although I understand a little.
To Ann Bardacke, Thanks for the information. We thought that was possible and we did try to get more information from The Forward but were not successful. We will continue on that route. My adult children have shown an interest in knowing more about Adolph and His wife Lillian. We remember them fondly but not with any knowledge. Sylvia
does anyone reading this have information about my grandfather Leon Gottlieb. He wrote many of the serialized stories that were so popular during the early yeaersof the Forward. According to one researcher i have met my grandfather created and wrote the Bintel Briefs. This researcher dedicated much of her doctoral thesis to my grandfather Leon Gottlieb.
I've just seen this, and would like to reply to Sylvia Misbin, if she can be contacted. My grandmother, Dora (Held) Watnick was Adolph Held's sister. I knew Adolph as a child in the 60s. My father David Watnick was very close to Adolph and his wife Lily, and was the executor of his will in the early 70's. I think my father may still has some of his papers and artefacts (as well as his living room chairs!)
I would like to get in touch with Sylvia and Emily also. My grandmother Charna Oppenheim was Adolph Held's aunt. I believe Sylvia's mother-in-law was Ruth Held Goldschlag. Ruth and my mother were close; in fact, Ruth and her mother Fanny lived in my building on East 96th Street. I would love to hear from Sylvia and Emily, as I remember Dora Watnick, my grandmother's niece.
Adolph Held was my grand-uncle. My maternal grandmother, for whom I was named, was Pauline Michaels Strauss. One of her sisters was Lillian Michaels Held. I have met with Uncle Al on seceral occassions; one was in L.A. and later at City of Hope, one at the Forward offices in 1963, and a memorable lunch with him and David Dubinsky at Lindy's in the mid 40s. I have a great deal of information about him and his career, including information from files at the Wagner Labor Library at NYU where I went to do some research. I'll be happy to share with Sylvia Misbin, Emily Watnick, Heidi and anyone else with an interest. please let me know how to contact you or ask the Forward to give you my email address. I authorize its release. PAUL MICHAELS WEIL Anahola, Hawaii
From Heidi: I've been in touch with the Misbins, would like to speak with Emily Watnick...your grandmother Dora Watnick was my mother'S first cousin. My email:JHeidi5@aol.com Paul: I'd be happy to hear from you, as well.
My grandfather, Morris Jacobin, was one of the first organizers of Local 17, a part of the Joint Board of the Cloakmakers Union, became chairman of the Joint Board and and helped build the ILGWU over seventeen years. I know he wrote a paper in 1908 "Die Wacher" with Samuel Gompers, Deutsch, Sec of ILGWU and Rosenberg, President of ILGWU. He was also a frequent contributor to the FORWARDS which he served as Labor editor, I believe. A rabbi, born in Jewabne, Poland, his bio was published in the FORWARDS in 1952, "Meine, Zwei, Schone Welten" which regrettably I neither have in Yiddish or the translation in English. I loved him dearly but know so little about his background and wondered if you came across the name in your research (I believe he changed his name from Morris Jacobitinsky to Jacobin). By the way I have a history PhD from Wisconsin during the Mosse years. I was fortunate to trip over this article and learn about your research.
Please see my comment above concerning Morris Jacobin (or Lazer Jacobinksy, former Labor Editor of the Forwards and founder of the ILGWU. Any information about him would be much appreciated.
a bit late in commenting but Adolph Held was my and my late brother Ted's great uncle. We at times lived with his brother, Dr Isadore W Held and his wife Fanny and he was a constant visitor. I believe he served one term as an Alderman from the Socialist Party before Tammany did him in. He actually saved the City a great deal of money in the cost of ice.He was first President of the Amalgamated Bank (at the request of Sidney Hillman)and had a direct impact on the creation of social security and Medicare. (Pres Kennedy praised him at a Madison Sq Gardens rally).As an officer of the ILGWU he was partly responsible for Penn South Houses as well as earlier the Amalgamated Houses (different union)He had a great sense of humor and he recollected that when he went to Russia after the First World war he had to repeat over and over again-"Vodka is a drink, volga is the river"