The second world meeting of the World Federation of Jewish Journalists, held here and in Jerusalem this weekend under the shadow of the demise in New York of the 57-year-old Day-Jewish Journal, heard Laborite MK Yitzhak Korn, head of the Israel Executive of the World Jewish Congress’ Political Committee, suggest a $5 million fund be established to insure the regular publication of Jewish newspapers and books on Jewish subjects.
Such a fund, Korn said, could be set up with the cooperation of several international Jewish organizations. A number of speakers stressed the precarious position of Jewish newspapers and urged a general, total effort to save them. Two speakers noted that the Day-Jewish Journal was closed with no prior announcement to the staff and with no opportunity to inform the leadership of it in another issue.
954 JEWISH NEWSPAPERS AROUND WORLD
Joseph Fraenkel of London, a researcher specializing in Jewish journalism, asked the World Federation and the WJC to create a committee to arrange a special celebration on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Jewish press in 1975. The first such publication, he recalled, was launched in Amsterdam in 1675.
He said there were today 954 Jewish newspapers around the world, 43 percent of them in English, 23 percent in Hebrew, 12 percent in Yiddish, 6 percent in French, 5 percent in Spanish, 4 percent in German and 7 percent in other languages. Of the total number, 629–or 66 percent–are published in the diaspora, with 325–or 34 percent–in Israel.
PROGRAM FOR JEWISH JOURNALISTS
The conference passed a resolution encouraging the creation of a new generation of Jewish journalists through a journalists’ exchange program and grants to those with promise. The conference praised the role of the Jewish press in the effort of Soviet Jews to assert their Jewishness and move to Israel.
Greetings were sent to the Forward, the Yiddish daily; and Hadoar, the Hebrew weekly, celebrating their 75th and 50th anniversaries. Both are published in New York. The conference urged the release of all Soviet Jewish political prisoners and called for emigration permission to Mrs, Esther and David Markish, the widow and son of Peretz Markish, the Yiddish writer killed in the 1952 Stalinist purge of intellectuals.
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