[The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does indicate approval.–Editor.]
A letter, hitherto never published, from Count Leo Tolstoi to Sholom Aleichem, the famous Jewish writer, written on May 6, 1903, shortly after the pogrom in Kishinev and expressing the views of the great Russian author on that tragic event in the life of the Jews in Russia, will appear for the first time in a biography of Sholom Aleichem, written by his son-in-law, I. D. Berkowitz, which will be off the press shortly.
In his letter to Sholem Aleichem, Tolstoi wrote: “The terrible outrage which was committed in Kishinev was a painful surprise to me. I partly expressed my attitude on this matter in a letter to a Jewish acquaintance, a copy of which I am enclosing. A few days ago we sent a collective letter from Moscow to the mayor of Kishinev, in which we gave utterance to our feelings on this terrible affair.”
Expressing his readiness to write something for a collection of articles and stories to be published in Yiddish by Sholom Aleichem for the purpose of helping the Kishinev pogrom victims, Tolstoi concluded his letter thus:
“To my regret what I have to say, namely, that the guilty one, not only of the Kishinev pogrom but of that prejudice which is being implanted in a certain small part–not the Russian folk masses–of the population–is none other than the government–this, to my regret, I cannot say in a publication printed in Russian.”
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF YIDDISH JOURNALISM
On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary since the founding of the “Jewish Morning Journal” of New York, one of the leading Yiddish dailies in America, an editorial in that paper (July 2 issue) traces the origin and growth of that organ, which occurred parallel with the development of American Jewry from its small bebinnings twenty-five years ago to its present proportions.
Describing its role in the development of Yiddish journalism in America, the “Jewish Morning Journal” declares: “To have made Yiddish journalism an honorable profession to have made the Jewish newspaper a respectable American business, to have broadened and expanded the outlook of the growing Jewish public, is a record of which we may feel to some degree proud.”
A School of Religion, participated in by the Episcopal, Methodist and Jewish foundations on the campus, is being conducted at the University of Wisconsin, in connection with the summer school work at the university.
Dr. A. L. Sachar of the University of I111, nois is in charge of the Jewish courses, one in the outlines of Jewish civilization and the other in Religious developments in modern Jewish Life.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
