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"Der Moment" (1910-1939)

2012, STUDIA Z DZIEJÓW TRÓJJĘZYCZNEJ PRASY ŻYDOWSKIEJ NA ZIEMIACH POLSKICH

Abstract

Der Moment became one of the two largest circulation Yiddish dailies in Poland thanks to the comprehensiveness and diversity of its content, which included local and world news, literature and the arts, sports, popular medicine, and other genres at its height. Together with its bitter rival, the Zionist Der Haynt, it transformed the face of Jewish journalism in the age of mass politics and culture that unfolded following the 1905 Russian Revolution and continued to shape Jewish public opinion in Poland until the outbreak of World War II. It helped to increase the prestige of Yiddish in the eyes of its readers as well as contributed to the formation of journalistic and literary registers in the Jewish vernacular. The very existence of a thriving Yiddish press also challenged the aspirations of the Polish nationalist movement for cultural and political hegemony in a longed for Polish sovereign state, exacerbating tensions between Jews and Poles.