p.292, Translated by Zulima Seligsohn
In the Summer of 1932, Haynt changed from a private
undertaking to a cooperative publication of its contributors. This happened
after a long financial dispute with the owners, which ended with a strike by
all three staff divisions: editorial, administrative, and printing. The strike
went on for six weeks, and when Haynt came out again in June, the
newspaper was already a publication of the cooperative entity Alt-Nay. The
birth pangs of the cooperative were not slight. In the second volume of Noentn Avar >The Recent Past=, 113, 115-121, its author ( L. Yakubovich)[1]
wrote about the basis of the conflict and the reason why the strike lasted so
long. This chapter will deal with the publishing activities that took place at Haynt
in the era of Alt-Nay, until the second world war broke out. But let
us first tell of the thoughts and uncertainties that roiled the minds of the
responsible contributors before the cooperative was created.
When it became clear that there was no other way out of the
long and complicated conflict than for the contributors to take over HAYNT under
a lease from its owners, there appeared, besides the technical issues that were
involved in starting the cooperative, the problem of a suitable name for the
paper. In Koeleth >Ecclesiastes= 7:1, it is written that a Agood name is better than precious oil,@ and we sought not just a name for the
cooperative enterprise, but one that would express the nationalist and Zionist
character of Haynt while stressing its purpose to remain the press organ
at the forefront of the struggle of Polish Jews. Alt-Nay is the shortened
Yiddish title of Theodore Herzl=s visionary work Alt Neuland, which envisions the future Jewish nation in Eretz Israel. In the twelfth century (1142), during the
siege of
It was Avrum Goldberg who
suggested the name Alt-Nay for the Haynt cooperative. He pointed out
that the name would symbolize the Zionist platform of Haynt and would
express the connection between the past and the future of the cooperative. The
name won out and was adopted.
Among some of the writers there were concerns voiced that
the technical personnel might want to change the character of Haynt in
the future. The co-workers in the administration and in printing belonged to
professional trade unions and many of them were active in socialist parties who
often fought against Zionism. Among the editors, therefore, there were opinions
that at a general meeting of the cooperative, it could come about that there
might be enough votes to change the direction of the newspaper, not just as a
Zionist organ, but in its posture toward the government in the hopes that the
rulers might leave Haynt alone. The material harm of the confiscations
would be avoided, and that would allow the salaries in the cooperative, which,
as had been expected after the lengthy strike, were rather modest, to be
raised. To ensure against such an eventuality, there were particular points
entered into the official by-laws of the cooperative which made it impossible
to alter Haynt=s
traditional line.
Avrum-Itzhok Provalsky,
a well-known worker in the Jewish cooperative movement in
As it happens, it seems that the apprehensions were not
justified.
Everyone in the
cooperative was of one mind, in that Haynt could exist only as an
outspoken organ of the Zionist and nationalist Jewish struggle. No one had
thought otherwise. No danger threatened the cooperative in this regard. The
danger that loomed was on the
part of the Polish government.
Having in mind the difficult experiences, the interference
of the commissions, the sealing-up of the printing plant, and the periodic
closures of Haynt, the cooperative considered the possibility that one clear
morning a commission would decide that the newspaper=s
ceilings are unstable and they would close Haynt down not for political
reasons but supposedly on the grounds of general building regulations. It was
well-known that during the Seim (Lower chamber of the
Polish Parliament) electoral campaign in 1930 there were closures of various
printing plants that printed newspapers and election materials for parties who
were in opposition to the Senacia regime. The excuse
used was that the noise of the printers kept the neighbors up at night. The
threat hung over the cooperative like the sword of Damocles; the grievous
experience of 1934 when the Haynt plant was shut down; and 1938, when
the newspaper was closed down and again had to appear under a different name
for three months, without there being anyone to protest to, not even in vain;
these would bare witness that the fear was well-founded.
As a cooperative, Haynt remained the spokes-organ of
the national Polish Jewish community. The newspaper supported the program and
politics of the Zionist movement in the same way it had done when it was a
private publication, despite the co-workers themselves gravitating toward the
radical General Zionist wing in the World Zionist organization. On crucial
questions about Zionism, the co-workers were free to express their individual
opinions, and all wings of the Zionist movement could make their stands known
as long as their pronouncements stayed within the frame of the Congress=s decisions. When Jabotinsky
attempted to turn Haynt into a tool in his campaign to undermine the
World Zionist organization, the cooperative was not swayed, and agreed that it
would be better for him to stop writing than to sacrifice the general Zionist
character of the newspaper as the recognized advocate of all Zionist groups
(See Chapter 20). There was also no change, during the era of Alt-Nay, in the
newspaper=s position
toward internal Polish politics, and especially toward their eradication
policies, and it was for this reason that Haynt was often punished by
confiscations and shut down twice.
The tradition of clean hands which was valued at Haynt was
observed by the cooperative in full
measure. External factors did not get access to Chlodna 8 either in Alt-Nay
times or in the period of the private publishers; advertisements were examined
before they were accepted for printing; during the electoral campaigns, Haynt
and Hayntike Nayes printed only the submissions of parties and
organizations who were ideologically close to their own. A great many of the
election ads were printed on credit, and no small amount of the debts of the
Zionist organization remained unpaid. Obviously, this was reflected in the
budget. The newspapers donated much space to notices and reports of all kinds
of organizations and philanthropic societies, especially in their Friday
issues. Such materials were printed without charge and reporters were generally
sent to the organizations=
meetings.
In general, the relationships at the cooperative were well-disposed. It is, of course, natural that in an enterprise of more than a hundred people with outspoken political persuasions, different cultural levels and length of service, both professional and social, there were individualists with their own sympathies and animosities. Among Haynt=s technical personnel there were many people active in parties of the left, some of them in leadership positions. It took time for the Haynt family, many of them writers and among them political leaders and social activists, to become the Alt-Nay family, to which the co-workers of all three divisions belonged.. A lot of this was due to the members not having any fantasies. They looked at the cooperative with clear eyesight. No one was under the illusion that he owned a personal or private portion of the publication and could throw his weight around or do as he pleased. On the contrary, it became clear that the cooperative was more an internal discipline than an external organizational form: without hierarchies, divisions-of-labor, or specified working-hours. Most important, they realized that without internal peace nothing would be accomplished. And everyone really worked with enthusiasm. Even the ones who were at first principally against changing their status from proletarians and employeesB-and there was no lack of them in all three divisions-Bto Acapitalists@ and Aentrepreneurs,@ albeit in the guise of members of a cooperative, were influenced by the collective spirit and little by little made peace with the new situation.
Management also fulfilled their professional duties in the
editorial office, administration, and printing plant, whenever it was possible
to do so without causing harm to the business. A significant factor in the
development of the business was the stable nature of the management, which saw
very few changes.
The management did not consist of experienced publishers or
genuine businessmen. Yacov Lederman
was a type-setter, Shloime Tzuker
worked in the administration as a traveling inspector of the agents in the
province, and Chaim Finkelstein came from his writing desk to the editorial
office. The administration did not have a chairman. Chaim Finkelstein was
elected secretary and he ran the publication.
After the forced hiatus of six weeks, it was the
administration=s
responsibility to have to start up a publication that issued two large dailies,
both with various issues, and journals in three languages. From the sales
income from newspapers and journals, 105 families of the cooperative=s members on site had to make a living,
as well as close to a thousand outside agents, many of whom supported
themselves solely from distributing Haynt and its issues; and the tens
of correspondents and temporary contributors in Poland and abroad, who in the
main received income from Haynt only. Moreover, the cooperative had
pledged to pay the owners a large sum for the lease of their machines, for
their own salaries, rent, electricity, taxes, and the rates to amortize the
debts of the publication from the time before the strike. The material damage
from the repeated confiscations of Haynt were a permanent expense which
ran to several tens of thousands of zlotys a year. As soon as they began to
figure out their first budget, the administration had to take this into
consideration and include a reserve amount to cover at least part of the
deficit. All these expenses significantly reduced the profits that were left in
the treasury to pay salaries. It was necessary to find new sources of income,
and to find them quickly. The cooperative aspired to publications that required
initiative and energy. It was necessary to establish priorities.
The fact that the newspaper had barely lost any readers
after the strike was encouraging. Haynt was blessed with the kind of
reader that was unique among newspapers, and not just among Jews in
expressing readers= comments about articles and news items
in the newspaper. Haynt was the address to which readers wrote about
their problems, asked for advice, requested that the paper write about their
local needs . Hundreds of such letters were received every day from
Haynt did not treat the readers as customers. The
writers of the newspaper and their readers were like friends and Jewish
comrades, like a large family, bound to each other by feelings of kinship and
shared destiny. In PART TWO, the summary of an article by B. Yeushzon on this subject, which he wrote for the Jubilee-Book
1908-1928, 7-8 is included. In both Jubilee books, it was Chaim
Finkelstein who dealt with the mutual relationship between the readers and Haynt
(pp. 16, 16-17), and the opinions of the readers themselves were prominently
expressed in Yosef Huberman=s already cited dedication in the
annual of Haynt which he donated to the Sharei
Tzion Library in Tel-Aviv.
The unique ties that bound the readers to the newspaper and
the newspaper to the readers manifested itself particularly during the long
strike. The newspapers they read when their own newspaper did not appear did
not satisfy the readers, and all of them returned to Haynt.
In the process of looking for means to broaden the income
base, there were suggestions of projects for new newspapers and journals,
popular novels, and other mass publications. In the midst of all these projects
stood Haynt, loved and cared for like the apple of their eye. The
Yiddish press in
Haynt endeavored to satisfy a readership of young
Jews and citizens. It printed novellas and poems by young Yiddish writers. Much
space was given to general news that might interest young Jewish men and women.
The newspaper was current, its news was the latest, its articles responsive to
immediate events. Its reader had no need to seek news items in the non-Yiddish
press.
At the same time, Hayntike Nayes was reorganized and
modernized for the purpose of raising the popular mass-newspaper to the status
of a serious afternoon publication, in the hope that the readers of Hayntike
Nayes would in time move their allegiance to Haynt. The afternoon
paper was looked upon as a kind of insurance for the future. If Haynt
should be closed down, perhaps Hayntike Nayes might still be able to
appear. As was noted in Chapter 6, this figuring was done without the owners.
Hillel Maimon,
the actual editor of Hayntike Nayes was a methodical and painstaking
journalist. A dry personality by nature and a dour character, he treated his
co-workers harshly. Two of them, Gite Grabie and Mordekhai Grinfeder (1901- ?) demonstrated a talent for writing. They
disappeared very early during the first days of the war. Ephraim Shedletzky, at present a contributor to the Yiddish
division of Israel-Radio, was also among the young journalists who began their
career at Hayntike Nayes.
When the war broke out, Maimon
left toward the Eastern borders. He was arrested by the Bolsheviks and sent to Komi, where he died of hunger in 1942 at the age of 57.
Besides Simkha Pietrushka
(See Chapter 9), the other writer of leading articles in Hayntike Nayes
was Dr. Avrum Glicksman. An
all-round educated man, he was versed in literature and philosophy, economic
issues and international politics. He also wrote about literature and theater. His
one fault was his refusal to be brief. He wanted to fill every article he wrote
with all he knew about the subject. Dr. Glicksman
complained that what he wrote was too deep, too intellectual for a popular
mass-consumption newspaper, that his true place was with Haynt. The
management of the cooperative made it possible for him to publish articles in AHAYNT@
once in a while. He perished in Treblinka in 1943 at the age of 60.
Hayntike Nayes usually printed two and sometimes
three novels about the Jewish past in
continuation of his own novels to Hayntike
Nayes.
B. Kuczer (See Chapters 10 and 11)
had a few novels printed in Hayntike Nayes that were exceptional. One of
his novels, ADi Tzigaynerin >The
Gypsy Girl=,@ was turned into a play and shown
with great success in
The main writer of novels at Hayntike Nayes was Yakov-Kopel Dua (1898--1942). He
wrote very quickly and profusely, on all subjects. A master of dialogue, he did
not hold with long artistic descriptions, did not delve into psychological
analyses or tell of the Ainner
sorrows@ of his
heroes, nor did he disclose to his readers their hidden evil thoughts. He
contributed in great measure to the success of Hayntike Nayes.
Dua was a tragic figure. Paralyzed
in both legs, he lay in bed mostly and wrote his novels sitting up half-way
leaning on pillows. The manuscript would be brought over to the editorial
office by his brother, Motl Dua,
a clerk in the administration. On the rare days when Dua
went outside, he would with great effort drag himself on crutches to Schultz=s Restaurant at the corner of Carmelicka and Nowolipki. This
was a tavern where people would drop in for a little Aschnaps@
chased by a piece of herring or a serving of chopped liver. One could have a
meal there for very little cost. Over a mug of beer, Dua
would debate for hours with young writers and labor activists for whom the
tavern was a place of shelter.
Dua suffered from great needs in
the Ghetto. The day that he, with much courage, undertook to come out to the
street, he was shot by the Germans, not far from the place where, after the
war, a monument by the sculptor Natan Rapoport was placed to commemorate the heroes of the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising.
Moishe Leizerovich,
one of Haynt=s
proofreaders (See Chapter 14), interpreted for Hayntike Nayes the weekly
portion of the Torah. He had learned from his father, the
Hayntike Nayes devoted much space to problems of
health and hygiene. Dr. Mordekhai Lensky
(1889B1964),
who had written for
Haynt as early as 1918, and
Dr. Eliahu-Hirsch Vigdorovich
(1881B1942), wrote
popular medical columns and answered questions sent in by readers who had not
found help from their own doctors. Dr. Lensky
survived and after the war immigrated to
Haynt and Hayntike Nayes each had two
editions: one for the provinces and one for
The Hebrew weekly Bederekh >On
the Way (or Road),= was
published for seven years, from 1931 to 1937. During that time, it printed
articles, essays, novellas, and poems by Nahum Sokolov,
Chaim Nachman Bialik, Yosef Kloyzner, and Yitzhak Katzenelson. Many young Hebrew writers published their
early works there. A. L. Yakubovich was the editor of
Bederekh and when he immigrated to Eretz
At the end of 1932, the economic conditions of Alt-Nay were
consolidated and the newspaper stood on a solid financial basis. For the first
time in many years, the budget was balanced and the co-workers received their
salaries regularly. Circulation of Haynt and Hayntike Nayes was
growing. The other publications, except for Bederekh,
brought in significant income;
and so, despite the harsh repeated
persecution by the government, the financial outlook of the cooperative was
satisfactory and it was possible to make concrete plans for new publications. It
was decided to attempt an experiment with a Polish language issue.
This was not the first time that an attempt had been made by
Haynt to reach Polish-speaking Jews. Already on
Alt-Nay=s
own experiment to issue a Polish language organ was kept quite modest. It was
decided to begin with a weekly rather than a daily paper. The weekly=s first number, named Opinia >Opinion (or View) came out on
Opinia did not have a long
life because of a blow that came from a totally unexpected source.
Opinia printed serially a historical study about
Jesus by Dr. Joseph Klausner. This work, which Klausner published in 1922, was translated from the original
Hebrew into various languages and was received favorably by Western European
critics, although not so in
Opinia was closed down in 1935. According to the
constitution, all religions were equal in
For a time, Alt-Nay published a Polish language weekly named
Nowa Palestina which
was dedicated solely to questions of Zionism and the building of Eretz
In 1937, Alt-Nay created a weekly, Handels-Velt
>World
of Commerce,= to
inform Jewish merchants and tradesmen of the ways they could use to protect in
practice their threatened economic positions. The editor of Handels-Velt
was Moishe Mark, who wrote financial articles for
Haynt (See Chapter 4).
In January of 1938, Alt-Nay began to publish an
illustrated weekly under the name Velt-Shpigl. The last number carries
the date of
The success of Velt-Shpigl led to the idea of
publishing the same kind of journal in Polish. The management of Alt-Nay contacted
the management of the cooperative of the Jewish-Polish newspaper Nasz Przeglad >Our Review=
in Warsaw, and they both met at the offices of Nasz
Przeglad in June of 1939 to discuss the matter. The
representatives of Nasz Przeglad
stated that they had nothing against Alt-Nay publishing a journal in the Polish
language in the style of Velt-Shpigl, and preparations were made to
publish the first number in September of 1939, when students would be returning
from their summer vacations.
On
The novels and tales that were printed serially in small
books of 24 or 32 pages had an extraordinary success. The books appeared once
or twice a week. This undertaking was calculated to appeal to a specific type
of reader who was not yet accustomed to buy a newspaper or find enjoyment in a
good book. These small books could fit into one=s
pockets and this was one of their great practical virtues.
Alt-Nay=s
far-reaching retailing system made it possible for people to acquire these
books wherever Haynt was sold. Of the various publications of this kind,
we will mention just two, which had fantastic runs and whose financial success
helped cover the enormous losses that Haynt had suffered on account of
the confiscations.
As soon as the cooperative became active after the strike,
it began to publish a novel titled Sabina. Its author was Kopel Dua. The books were
practically torn from the vendors=
hands. The presses ran day and night and didn’t suffice. The novel reached a
circulation of almost 100,000 copies per volume and was published twice a week
during a period of six months.
A different kind of publication in episodes was a series of
detective stories. Their author was Shelomo Ben-Israel
(1908 C), now a
radio commentator in
In 1937, Shelomo Ben-Israel came
to
Jabotinsky was sure that the
detective stories would be as well received by Yiddish readers in
He had planned to translate Dante=s
Divine Comedy into Hebrew, but because of his Zionist activism, he had
never had the time to do this, and finally, in the
Conan Doyle. Jabotinsky predicted
that detective stories would appeal to the imagination of young Jews. He
actually thought that, in a way, they might fulfill an educational function by
sharpening their
readers=
faculties of observation and logical thinking, and show them how to find
solutions in difficult situations.*
Leizerovich was so influenced by Jabotinsky=s
statement that he laid aside all his other work and translated a few of the
tales by Ben-Israel. He brought them as samples to the management of Alt-Nay
and suggested they be printed in Haynt. Management was not quite ready
to do that, they felt that the detective-story genre was not suitable to the
character of Haynt and they did not know in general how the Jewish
readership would react.
Leizerovich relayed to them his
talk with Jabotinsky and asked that the
administration should consider the matter. After some deliberation, it was
decided that thy would experiment with a few of the stories but that they would
not print them in Haynt or in Hayntike Nayes. They would issue
them as little books at a very low price.
The stories were advertised by Yatscan=s already proven method, which had succeeded
with the sensational novels (See Chapter 1) and was confirmed as an efficient
way to attract readers when Alt-Nay began issuing the popular novels in
book-form in 1932. Each time, the beginning of a new novel would be printed as
an 8-page brochure, with an end note after the last line on the final page
reading Acontinued.@
When Shelomo Ben-Israel came to
* In the First Volume
of his biography of Jabotinsky, mentioned in Chapter
20 (p. 346), J. Schechtman confirms that Jabotinsky was in favor of making detective fiction to
young Jewish people.
On
in the heart of one of the truly swarming
streets of
The subsidiary of Haynt that Alt-Nay opened was
situated in the front. The publications of the cooperative were displayed in
the shop windows. Inside there were reception areas where subscriptions were
accepted for Haynt and the periodical publications of Alt-Nay. The
office became very popular in the city. All day people would stand at the
windows and read the newspapers and journals.
Alt-Nay had the reputation of a solid enterprise. A number
of businessmen from the publishing world came by with proposals for
partnerships with the cooperative. Management was careful, however, in its
selection of new undertakings.
The cooperative undertook to distribute the Groschen Bibliotek >Penny Library=, which was founded by Moishe Finkelstein, the son of Noah Finkelstein (1903-1943)
and Alexander Grinberg (1905 C).
The Groschen Bibliotek
printed biographies of famous people and monographs about both Jewish and general
events. Every week it issued a little book of 64 pages. Its attractive
contents, easy language, the inexpensive price of 39 groschen,
and its comfortable format made the Groschen Bibliotek popular among the people who saw it as a source
of knowledge of politics, political figures, philosophy and philosophers, and
current political happenings in the world. The author of most of these writings
was Kopel Dua, or also Nachman Mayzel or Bunem Warshawsky (1893-1956). Other
writers also contributed to the Groschen Bibliotek.
The Groschen Bibliotek
existed until 1935. During this period it
issued 264 little books with a circulation that fluctuated
between 4,000 and 20,000 copies per book. Some had four or five editions;
others were printed with two or three sequels.
Moishe Finkelstein perished at
He changed his name to Alexander Donat,
and under this name he wrote a book of memoirs in English, about the Warsaw
Ghetto and the camps where he and his family were dispatched to by the Germans.
He is also the author of a number of articles in English-Jewish journals about
the Holocaust and resistance.
At the beginning of 1937, Jacov Brams, a publisher of Yiddish, Russian, and German
newspapers in
Yiddishe
Bilder >Jewish
Pictures,= as the
journal was called, had no parallel among Jewish publications of that time or
even of our time. Jacov Brams
had the ambition to place Yiddishe Bilder on the highest rung and make of it a luxury
publication. The journal was printed on fine light-colored paper. The pictures
were large and clear. Each number was rich in artistic illustrations and mirrored Jewish life throughout the world.
In the literature section, there were novels and narratives by modern Jewish
writers; much space was allotted to entertainments such as charades, rebuses,
and riddles. The section of humor and witticisms was written by I. S. Goldshtain. Jacov Brams demonstrated a great deal of initiative and editorial
ideas and invested large sums of money with a generous hand to make the journal
attractive. But its price of 50 groschen was too high
for a Jewish weekly. No other journal intended for mass circulation was that
costly, and Yiddishe Bilder
did not sell enough numbers. The publisher tried by various means to
increase circulation: the text under the pictures was in four languages:
Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, and German; he instituted picture contests with prizes
(in the first of these there were 6,000 participants); he started a course in
the English language on
of these had much effect. Half a
zloty for an issue was too expensive. Jacov Brams did not lose courage or waiver in his faith that one
day the journal would find enough readers to ensure its existence. In the
meantime he continued to pour money into it. When the management of Alt-Nay
decided in 1938 to issue Velt-Shpigl, it gave early notice to Brams and asked him if he would be against it. He replied
that he had nothing against the project, and did not envision that the new
journal could compete with Yiddishe Bilder.
Yiddishe Bilder ran from
The dynamic activities of Alt-Nay had necessitated the
modernization and expansion of the printing plant. The cooperative had six
typesetting machines on lease from the owners, but they were old and worn. The
font for headlines and advertisements, which was still used in
In
At that time, the income from
In the years between the wars, the world press had printed
many stories about the Romanian king and his Jewish mistress Magda Lupescu. She was made out
to be the daughter of a poor Jew from
compromising sensationalist gossip,
and the Polish ambassador in
Jew-hating Iron Guard, who wished to dethrone the king and
set up a Nazi regime in
The truth came out a short time later. Madam Lupescu was not a Jewish daughter. There was even a
conjecture that she was the illegitimate daughter of the first King Carol, an
uncle of Carol II. Her name was not Magda but
But let us return to our own topic. The Romanian political
police, the ignominious Siguranza, reacted to
Finkelstein=s efforts
in its own way. It gave notice to the Haynt representative that if he
did not leave
Haynt organized various tours to Eretz
The two journeys to Eretz
The second trip was not easy to organize. When Alt-Nay
contacted the English consul in
intervened with the consul, but to no avail. It looked as if the undertaking would have to be abandoned, but a short time later, the consul came up with an idea. He had, he said, found a way to make sure that the tourist