VIDEO: A Yiddish Newsroom During the Eventful Summer of ‘76

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts.
In the summer of 1976, against the backdrop of the dramatic Entebbe Operation, the Bicentennial celebrations on the Hudson River and the nomination of Jimmy Carter for President at the Democratic National Convention in New York, the Yiddish Forward, then located at its historic building in the lower East side, continued to provide its readers with the latest news in Yiddish, as well as essays and serialized novels by Isaac Bashevis Singer and other acclaimed writers.
In this video, Lillian Silver Weber, a daughter of then editor-in-chief Simon Weber, and Jewish historian Dr. David Fishman, who worked as a summer intern there that summer, present a portrait of the editor and the mood in the newsroom during that eventful summer.
The video is in Yiddish and English, and includes English subtitles.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
— Alyssa Katz, editor-in-chief
