The “Volkscajtung”, the organ of the Jewish Socialist Party (Bund) in Poland, which appears seven days a week, including Saturdays, did not appear last Saturday, which was Rosh Hashanah.
An explanation has now been issued which says: We did not publish last Saturday, not because the Saturday on which Rosh Hashanah occurs is any more sacred to us than any other Saturday. The reason is that the Jewish festivals are not only of religious significance. They are also rest-days. Under the Socialist society we shall establish new proletarian festivals, but in capitalist society we have only May Bay, and therefore the workers have to use the existing rest days. That is why we have decided not to publish on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, or during the Feast of Tabornacles. There is another reason – distribution. We publish our paper to be read, and we depend for our circulation on the ordinary distributing agencies and news vendors who do not work on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, and our newspaper, if we published it, would have remained in our offices.
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.
