Establishment

The Freiheit was established in 1922 as a self-described "Communistic fighting newspaper" in the Yiddish language.^[1] The paper's chief goals included the promotion of the Jewish labor movement, the defense of the Soviet Union, the advancement of proletarian culture, and the defeat of racism in America.^[1]

Development

By 1925, the press run of the Freiheit grew to 22,000 copies per issue, making it the largest of nine daily newspapers in the United States affiliated with the American Communist Party.^[1]

The Morning Freiheit/Morgen Freiheit in its time was one of the most prominent Yiddish newspapers published in the United States, and the showcase of left socialist artists and writers both Jewish and non-Jewish, Zionist and internationalist. Among the writers to appear in its pages was Michael Gold, the author of the novel Jews Without Money. The newspaper made political contributions related to the formation of the International Fur and Leather Workers Union, as well as many of the needle trades unions in the United States, including the Amalgamated Clothing Workers union, and perhaps the Congress of Industrial Organizations (which later merged with the AFL as the AFL-CIO).

Following Moissaye Olgin's sudden death in November 1939, the Freiheit was headed by Paul Novick (1891-1989), a journalist born in Brest-Litovsk who had first come to America in 1913.^[2] Novick had been associated with the publication from its foundation in 1922 and was active in the ICOR, the American Committee of Jewish Writers, Artists and Scientists, and other Communist Party-sponsored mass organizations.^[2]