Der Beobachter an der Weichsel — Dostrzegacz Nadwiślański (The Vistula Observer, in German and Polish) was the first[1] Jewish newspaper. It was a weekly printed in Congress Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, between December 3, 1823 and November 29, 1824, 44 issues in total, with a circulation of 150 copies.[2][3]

Launched by Polish Jewish writer, head of the Warsaw rabbinical seminary, and assimilation activist Anthony Eisenbaum, the paper was printed in two languages: Polish and German, the latter in Hebrew script. To this end, during the centenary celebration of the Yiddish press, Nahum Sokolow smugly noted that as early as 1686 a group of Polish Jews in Amsterdam printed a semi-weekly in a likewise way, i.e., in German in Hebrew script, "so that the centenary of the Yiddish press should have been celebrated more than a century ago".[1] Other researchers claim that the language was heavily Germanized Yiddish to the point of being described as German.[3] A.Haffka wrote that the newspaper was not very well accepted, because it was written not in Yiddish, but rather in German.[4] Others disliked the assimilationist character of the newspaper.[2]

The page layout of the divided into two columns by language with basically identical content. The paper was run single-handedly by Eisenbaum himself.[3]

The next Jewish newspaper in Russian Empire, Ha-Melitz, this time in Hebrew, appeared nearly 40 years later.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Maximilian Hurwitz, The Romance of the Yiddish Press, The Ohio Jewish Chronicle, August 15, 1924
  2. 1 2 "Dostrzegacz Nadwiślański", Rzeczpospolita, July 13, 2008
  3. 1 2 3 Magda Opalski, "Dostrzegacz Nadwiślański"
  4. ↑ Wiesław Puś, Żydzi w Łodzi w latach zaborów 1793-1914, 2001, p.113

Further reading

(As cited by Magda Opalski, with minor corrections)

  • Majer Bałaban [ Meir Balaban ], “Nasi poprzednicy i nauczyciele: Prasa polsko-żydowska w XIX-tym wieku,” Nasz przegląd 263 (18 September 1938)
  • Marian Fuks, "Prasa żydowska w Warszawie", 1823–1939, Warsaw, 1979, pp. 21–40
  • Aleksander Hafftka, “Prasa zydowska w Polsce (do 1918)”, in: Zydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej, vol. 2, pp. 148–161, Warsaw, 1932
  • Jacob Shatzky, Geshikhte fun yidn in Varshe, vol. 1, pp. 290–291, New York, 1947
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