Opposition to the growing trend in the Jewish communities to acquire the local English-Jewish weeklies, as was the case recently by the United Jewish Federation in Pittsburgh, was voiced here by J.L. Fishbein, editor and publisher of the Sentinel, Chicago’s only Anglo-Jewish weekly.
“The trend toward community owned Jewish newspapers is a dangerous one that can only accentuate conformity and hasten assimilationism and decay, ” Mr. Fishbein commented editorially in his newspaper. “An aroused American Jewry must be awakened to this danger. Instead of standing supinely by as community after community loses its journalistic independence. we must make certain that the Jewish community press is given the communal aid and assistance offered to it presently only when it becomes the house organ of the Federation. Jewish businessmen should understand that it is as important as any other instrument of Jewish survival and give it the necessary support.”
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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.
