The Forward Association announced today that, because of continuing increases in operating costs, it was giving up its “struggle” to continue publishing the Jewish Daily Forward on its current Tuesday through Friday basis and would begin publication as a weekly on February 4.
The Association, noting that the Yiddish daily had begun publication, as a daily, on April 22, 1897, said the last issue of the Yiddish daily would be published on January 28. In its statement, the Association said that the recently-started English-language weekly supplement would continue.
The Association said that, until about 1972, the publication, a non-profit operation, had been managing but that around that time, the Forward began to be hurt by the kind of rising costs which, in the ensuing decade, forced major English newspapers throughout the United States and Canada to cease publication.
Harold Ostroff, Forward general manager, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that staff cuts were under study but that the Forward hoped to keep its present staff writers, although on a weekly basis.
The Association said it had remained “faithful” to the “guiding principle” of its creation “to serve the large mass of Jewish immigrants and to be their teacher in adapting themselves to a new home.”
The statement added that “over the course of the years,” the Forward had adapted itself “to the many changes in Jewish life both here in America and around the entire world. These past ten years have seen the reserves which were built up during the ‘good old days’ and other assets liquidated, in order to remain able to publish five times a week.”
CITES LOYAL READERS AND FRIENDS
The Association said “the strongest support for our existence came from the loyal readers and friends and the organized trade union movement in having raised $1.3 million in the course of four separate fund-raising campaigns.”
Ostroff said the campaigns were held in 1975, 1977, 1978 and during mid-1981 to mid-1982. He said that in 1973, the Forward dropped its Saturday issue, and four years ago, dropped its Monday edition, publishing four days a week since
He said the Association put many other economies into effect, including sale of its building on East Broadway in lower Manhattan. He said current circulation is 20,000 and that the Association hoped to maintain that sales figure as a weekly.
The Association said it came to the conclusion that it had only two options — one, to cease publication, “which was unthinkable,” and the other, to become a weekly newspaper. The Association said it had decided to switch to a weekly “with a strong determination to do everything in its power to continue the life of this newspaper.”
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.
