ABSTRACT
The Jewish press constitutes, collectively, perhaps the most vital source available to historians of the modern period. More than 10,000 Jewish newspapers and periodicals have appeared in the three main Jewish languages (Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino) as well as many of the languages of the countries in which Jews have resided, especially German and English. Scholars debate what makes a newspaper "Jewish," but certainly if either its content or audience are primarily Jewish, it warrants inclusion. The Jewish press was not merely a product of modernity, arising in tandem with the non-Jewish press during the same years and as a result of similar technological and socio-economic forces. Many foreign-language papers also began appearing by mid-century, such as Sinai and Die Deborah, at first catering to the German-speaking immigrants of that period. Others later appeared in Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish, and more recently Russian. More than one hundred Yiddish papers appeared before 1905 alone, most famously the socialist Forverts, launched in 1897.
