(JTA) — The former publisher of Aufbau, a prominent German-language magazine founded by Jewish refugees in New York, transferred ownership of the publication in an effort to save it.
The Switzerland-based former publisher, Susanne Braginsky, this month handed over Aufbau to another Swiss publishing firm, JM Judischen Medien AG, according to a report in this month’s edition of Tachles, a Swiss Jewish magazine also published by JM Judischen Medien.
Braginsky took over publishing Aufbau in 2004, some 70 years after it was founded in New York by German Jews who escaped Nazi Germany. Her firm, Serenada Verlag, is transferring ownership “in order to secure the long-term viability of Aufbau,” according to an April 12 news release by JM Judischen Medien.
The paper, whose names means “construction,” was a forum for authors and thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann.
“Writing a history of Aufbau would mean telling the story of the German-Jewish immigration to New York and the tumultuous fates of the immigrants,” Aufbau editor Manfred George wrote in 1941.
Under George, Aufbau went from being a monthly newsletter of the New World Club immigrants association to establishing itself as a weekly paper with a global readership. Aufbau has since returned to the monthly format but also has an online edition.
Under JM Judischen Medien, the U.S. “remains an area of focus alongside Europe, Israel and other regions,” the publisher’s statement read. “Aufbau has become a venue for younger, as well as prominent, Jewish and gentile writers such as Jared Diamond, Eric Foner, Walter Laqueur, Robert Menasse, Isabel Wilkerson and Elie Wiesel.”
