Morgen Freiheit (original title: ; English: ''Morning Freedom'') was a
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
-based daily
Yiddish language
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
newspaper affiliated with the
Communist Party, USA
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
, founded by
Moissaye Olgin in 1922. After the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
the paper's pro-Israel views brought it into disfavor with the Communist Party and its editor
Paul Novick Pesakh "Paul" Novick (7 September 1891 – 21 August 1989) was a radical Jewish-American journalist, political commentator, and editor. Novick is best remembered as the long time editor-in-chief of the Communist Party Yiddish-language daily '' Morge ...
was expelled from the organization. The paper closed in 1988.
Institutional history
Establishment
The ''Freiheit'' was established in 1922 as a self-described "Communistic fighting newspaper" in the Yiddish language.
[Henry Felix Srebrnik, ''Dreams of Nationhood: American Jewish Communists and the Soviet Birobidzhan Project, 1924-1951.'' Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2010; pg. 2.] The paper's chief goals included the promotion of the Jewish labor movement, the defense of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, the advancement of
proletarian culture
Working-class culture is a range of cultures created by or popular among working-class people. The cultures can be contrasted with high culture and folk culture, and are often equated with popular culture and low culture (the counterpart of high ...
, and the defeat of
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
in America.
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.
''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
The International Fur and Leather Workers Union (IFLWU), was a labor union that represented workers in the fur and leather trades.
History
The IFLWU was founded in 1913 and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
Radical 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.
[Srebrnik, ''Dreams of Nationhood,'' pg. 16.] 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.
Associate Editor
Shachno Epstein 1881-1945)(alleged to be an OGPU/NKVD agent -see
Juliet Stuart Poyntz case)
Writers
People who wrote for or served on the staff of ''Morgen Freiheit'' included:
*
Melech Epstein
*
Mike Gold
Michael Gold (April 12, 1894 – May 14, 1967) was the pen-name of Jewish American writer Itzok Isaac Granich. A lifelong communist, Gold was a novelist and literary critic. His semi-autobiographical novel '' Jews Without Money'' (1930) was a bes ...
*
Moissaye Olgin
*
Yosl Cutler
Footnotes
Further reading
* Matthew Hoffman, "The Red Divide: The Conflict between Communists and their Opponents in the American Yiddish Press," ''American Jewish History,'' vol. 96, no. 1 (March 2010), pp. 1–31
In JSTOR
{{authority control
1922 establishments in the United States
1988 disestablishments in the United States
Defunct newspapers published in New York City
Jewish newspapers published in the United States
Socialist newspapers
Yiddish-language newspapers published in the United States
Newspapers established in 1922
Publications disestablished in 1988
Yiddish communist newspapers
Communist Party USA publications
Non-English-language newspapers published in New York (state)
Yiddish culture in New York City
Defunct Yiddish-language newspapers published in the United States
Daily newspapers published in New York City