''Ha-Tsfira'' ( he, הצפירה) was a

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

-language newspaper published in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

in 1862 and 1874–1931.

History

The first issue of ''Ha-Tsfira'' appeared in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...

, in 1862, edited by

Chaim Selig Slonimski Ḥayyim Selig ben Ya'akov Slonimski () (March 31, 1810 – May 15, 1904), also known by Hebrew abbreviations, his acronym ḤaZaS (), was a Hebrew publisher, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, science writer, and rabbi. He was among the first t ...

. ''Ha-Tsfira'' was the first Hebrew paper with an emphasis on the sciences. The paper closed down after six months when Slonimski became principal of the rabbinical seminary in

Zhytomyr Zhytomyr ( uk, Жито́мир, translit=Zhytomyr ; russian: Жито́мир, Zhitomir ; pl, Żytomierz ; yi, זשיטאָמיר, Zhitomir; german: Schytomyr ) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the Capital city, a ...

, and the government began censorship of Hebrew books. It reopened in 1874 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, and began to be published in Warsaw in September 1875. Coverage of news and politics was introduced after the First Zionist Congress. From 1886, the paper began to appear as a daily. The driving spirit behind this change was Slonimski's assistant,

Nachum Sokolov Nahum ben Joseph Samuel Sokolow ( he, נחום ט' סוקולוב ''Nachum ben Yosef Shmuel Soqolov'', yi, סאָקאָלאָוו; ) was a Zionist leader, author, translator, and a pioneer of Hebrew journalism. Biography Nahum Sokolow was born ...

, who was later appointed editor-in-chief. ''Ha-Tsfira'' became part of a network of important Hebrew periodicals, among them '' Ha-Shahar'', '' Ha-Asif'', ''

Ha-Shiloaḥ ''Ha-Shiloaḥ'' () was a Hebrew-language literary journal, founded by Ahad Ha'am and the Ahi'asaf Publishing House in 1896. He edited the journal until December 1902, whereupon it came under the editorship of historian Joseph Klausner. It ceased ...

''. Some of the greatest names in early modern Hebrew literature published their work in the paper, including Mendele Mocher Sforim, Y. L. Peretz, and Sholem Aleichem.

History

References

Further reading