The oldest Yiddish newspaper in the United States, Freie Arbeiter Stimme (Free Voice of Labor), will cease publication tomorrow because of insolvable financial problems. In its 87 years of publication, the organ of Jewish anarchist philosophy had a peak weekly circulation of 30,000. Its last press run as a monthly was 1700 copies.
Ahrne Thome, the editor who has comprised the paper’s editorial staff, said the newspaper could not support itself from its first day of publication. Because the paper could afford to pay only a bookkeeper, Thome volunteered his services, starting 47 years ago. Until his retirement three years ago, Thorne earned a living as a lithographer for the Jewish Daily Forward, the 80-year-old only Yiddish daily still being published.
The Freie Arbeiter Stimme will vacate a two-room office on Union Square tomorrow and another chapter in American Jewish journalism will end. Thorne said that the Stimme was started to help newly-arriving Jewish immigrants with their cultural, social and economic problems and that it had a key role in the formation of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the bakers union, the millinery and cap makers unions and others.
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.
