Forverts Prints 150,000 Copies Per Day
100 Years Ago: Forverts editor Ab Cahan kvelled at the large circulation. Image by Forward Archives
Forward Looking Back brings you the stories that were making news in the Forward’s Yiddish paper 100, 75, and 50 years ago. Check back each week for a new set of illuminating and edifying clippings from the Jewish past.
100 Years Ago
1913
According to official figures, the Forverts has been selling 139,960 copies of the paper per day in New York City. We are now printing 150,000 copies per day! No Yiddish newspaper has reached that high a circulation. Even English-language newspapers don’t have circulation rates as high as ours. The Forverts has the third-largest circulation in New York, after New York Journal and The New York World. The main thing isn’t just financial and material success, it’s that the Forverts, the socialist newspaper of the Jewish proletariat, has achieved such significant influence in America’s largest city.
75 Years Ago
1938
“Among the thousands of people who strolled down the streets, enjoying the beautiful spring air, not one single Jew was to be found.” This is the most recent description of Vienna, taken from the Deutsche Telegraf newspaper. Since the recent Nazi takeover of Austria, Jews have been attacked and, in some cases, forced to scrub the streets. As a result, many of them are too frightened to go outside. Synagogues all over Austria have been attacked and ransacked. Even Christians caught buying items from Jews have been beaten by the Nazi Brownshirts. A few days ago there were 54 Jewish funerals in Vienna, which typically has half a dozen. Most of the funerals were for elderly Jews who had committed suicide during the Nazi rampage.
50 Years Ago
1963
West German government officials are demanding the extradition of two agents from Switzerland on the accusation that they were plotting to kidnap and murder Hans Kleinwaechter, a German Scientist who was allegedly working on a missile project in the United Arab Republic. The West German government said that while it disapproves of such activity, German citizens are free to travel and work where they please. The Swiss arrested the two agents: Joseph Bengal, an Israeli, and Otto Joklik, an Austrian. Israeli officials claim that a number of German scientists formerly in the employ of the Nazi missile program have been hired to work in the United Arab Republic, where they have reconstituted their previously defunct program.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
