[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 38 (Friday, March 21, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E566-E567]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     PAYING TRIBUTE TO THE FORWARD

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL P. FORBES

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 21, 1997

  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues in the 
U.S. House of Representatives to join me in paying tribute to the 
Forward, the king of New York's ethnic newspapers that has given voice 
to this city's Jewish community since 1897.
  For 100 years, Forverts has brought the news to New York's Jewish 
immigrant community in their native tongue, Yiddish. Considered by many 
as the exemplar of ethnic newspapers in a metropolis that supports more 
than 100 of these, the Forward has been hailed by no less than 
legendary New York newspaperman Pete Hamill as the model for all 
newspapers.
  The story of the Forward begins with one of the landmark developments 
of this Nation's history, the great European immigration that began 
during the latter part of the 19th century. The forward, and thousands 
of journals like it, was published for the 2\1/2\ million Jews from 
Eastern Europe who poured through great immigrant ports like Ellis 
Island between 1881 and 1925. Its first great editor was Abraham Cahan, 
a literary genius and acclaimed author who created a daily that was 
best described as a kind of running Talmudic text for the secular 
cultural life of the Yiddish-speaking masses. Its mix of sensationalism 
and seriousness was supplemented by the fictions, essays and poetry of 
the great names of Yiddish literature. Though he won a Nobel Prize for 
literature in 1978, Isaac Bashevis Singer first published his fictional 
work in the Forward.
  In the 1920's when the Forward wielded more influence than many of 
New York's English-language newspapers, this Yiddish daily boasted a 
circulation of more than a quarter million. In 1947, the paper's 50th 
anniversary party was so large it was staged in Madison Square Garden. 
It has even been said that the Forward's influence was so great, that 
it helped elect Meyer London to the U.S. House of Representatives in 
1914.
  May 25, 1990, was a historic day in the life of the Forward. After 93 
years of publishing solely in Yiddish, the Forward produced its first 
English-language edition. Not an English translation, but a new entity 
that shares only a Manhattan office and the rich heritage of the 
original Forward. Led by president and editor Seth Lipsky, formerly an 
editor of the Wall Street Journal, the English-language edition has 
quickly staked its claim as the leading secular newspaper covering the 
Jewish-American community. Today, the Forward also publishes a Russian-
language edition.

[[Page E567]]

  Though the Forward has always had a select readership, the issues and 
events found on its news pages are as diverse as the city it class home 
and the world that it covers. From politics to the arts, editorial 
cartoons to commentary, the Forward covers the entire range of the 
Jewish diaspora.
  In its early years, the Yiddish Forward helped generations of 
European Jews absorb the American way of life, and today this legendary 
newspaper is still the paper of record covering the Jewish community. 
That is why I ask my colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives to 
join me in saluting the Forward on its 100th anniversary.

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