Die Kuranten

Last updated

Title page from 5 August 1687 DienstagischeKurant.jpg
Title page from 5 August 1687

The Dinstagishe un Fraytagishe Kuranten was the earliest known Yiddish-language periodical, founded by Uri Phoebus Halevi (also known as Uri Fayvesh ben Aharon ha-Levi). [1] [2] It was a semi-weekly founded in Amsterdam in 1686, that was published on Tuesdays (Dinstag) and Fridays (Fraytag) and it lasted for little over one year. [3] It covered local news and news from other Jewish communities, including those as far away as India. [4] [5] Issues of the paper were discovered in 1902 by the librarian David Montezinos.

Contents

Die Kuranten is considered by some as the oldest Jewish newspaper, although others consider the Spanish-language Gazeta de Amsterdam  [ fr ] from 1672 as the oldest Jewish newspaper. [6] [7] Die Kuranten was the first publication not only published by the Jews, but addressed to and for the Jewish community, unlike the Spanish-language Gazeta de Amsterdam, which was not explicitly Jewish but had a predominantly Jewish readership, first published in 1672. [8] [9] The Yiddish used in Die Kuranten was notable for its lack of Hebrew-Aramaic elements and focused on news both specifically Jewish, such as the murder of a Jew in Hamburg and the fate of the Jewish community in Budapest during the war with the Ottoman Empire. [7]

Background

Uri Faybesh Halevi (1626–1715) was the grandson of the rabbi Moses Uri Halevi, who had emigrated to Amsterdam from Emden, Germany. [10] Uri Halevi and his son, Aron, were the first Jewish teachers of the New Christians from Spain and Portugal. Uri Faybesh Halevi initially joined the High German (Ashkenazi) congregation, then switched to a small Polish congregation in 1666, returned to the German congregation in December 1669, and finally became a member of the Sephardic congregation in 1671. [11] This was verboten of Ashkenazi Jews but because of the standing of his grandfather and father, he was permitted to join. [12] Halevi had founded a printing house in 1658 with the capital left by his wife's grandfather and eventually became one of the leading Jewish publishers in Amsterdam. [13] He was admitted to the Amsterdam Guild of Booksellers, Bookprinters, and Bookbinders as a member in 1664 under the name Philips (or Phylips) Levi. [6] [14]

Halevi was at the intersection of Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Christian printing through his own background, his membership at the Sephardic synagogue, and his non-Jewish in-laws, as his wife's father, David Pastes, had converted to Judaism. [6]

Amsterdam Jewish community

The Amsterdam Jewish community at the time of Die Kuranten's publication was divided between the more settled, wealthier Sephardic Jews who had fled from Spain to Portugal to Amsterdam. Newer arrivals were Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews from Germany who had arrived following the breakout of the Thirty Years' War, followed by further Yiddish-speaking Jews who had fled pogroms in Ukraine and Poland (1648–1650), and Polish and Lithuanian Jews fleeing wars between Poland, Russia, and Sweden. [6] [15] This group, on the whole, tended to be poorer and have more limited employment opportunities; the wealthier Sephardim repeatedly tried to encourage the Ashkenazi arrivals to re-emigrate to their home countries, without success. It is estimated that the number of Ashkenazi Jews in Amsterdam during this time period, who would have likely composed the majority of the Die Kuranten readership, was between three and four thousand. [2] The number of translations from Dutch to Yiddish, in the views of historian Marion Aptroot, suggests that many Ashkenazi Jews were only able to read and speak Yiddish. [6] [16]

It is also possible that the paper had a readership outside of what was then the Dutch Republic. Shlomo Berger was stated that the paper was circulating in Central and Eastern Europe during its brief publication. [17]

History

The first issue was published on 9 August 1686. [6] It was printed by Halevi from the first issue until 3 June 1687, when publishing was taken over by David de Castro Tartas, a Sephardic Jew and one of Halevi's competitors. [18] Single issues published by Halevi were called Kuranten (a plural noun), whereas a single issue published by Tartas was called Kurant. The issues usually appeared twice a week, but from certain periods, e.g. 6 December 1686 to 14 February 1687, it was published only weekly, on Fridays. From 8 August 1687 until the final issue, it was published weekly "because the Tuesday issue sells poorly". [6]

The news published in the periodical, which came from around the world through other Dutch newspapers, was edited and translated by the Jewish convert Moshe bar Avraham Avinu. [18] Originally from Nikolsburg, bar Avraham Avinu's first language was most likely German, which made learning Dutch relatively easier. As a ger, who likely converted to marry his wife, bar Avraham Avinu would have had to learn Hebrew and likely Yiddish. [18] As a compositor and translator, his and other compositors' role in the Jewish and publishing worlds would have been extremely important. He continued to work on Die Kuranten after the transfer from Halevi to Tartas in 1687. [6]

The final known issue of the paper was published on 5 December 1687. [2] Although nothing about the issue indicates it was the final publication of Die Kuranten, bar Avraham Avinu began working for the most influential Ashkenazi family in Amsterdam, the Gomperts, under the printer and businessman Cosman Gomperts in 1688. It is unlikely the publication of Die Kuranten continued beyond this point. By 1694, bar Avraham Avinu had left Amsterdam and set up a print house in Halle. [6]

Discovery

After the periodical folded, its existence and history was largely unknown in the Netherlands until 1902, when David Montezinos (1828–1916), the librarian at the Portuguese Synagogue, bought a book from a street peddler. [6] [19] The book contained 100 issues of Die Kuranten. Other Yiddishists, such as Sigmund Seeligmann, Jacob Shatzky, and Max Weinreich, also wrote about and described Die Kuranten; Weinrich described the paper as the "grandmother of Yiddish press" (di bobe fun der yidisher prese) in 1920. [20]

In 1935, Montezinos' assistant and successor at the Portuguese Synagogue library, Jacob da Silva Rosa published an article about Die Kuranten in Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad delineating the differences between Die Kuranten and the Gazeta. Where the Gazeta was targeted at the Spanish-speaking Jewish community that had settled in Amsterdam as New Christians, Die Kuranten was for a Jewish readership that was largely unable to read Dutch newspapers. In da Silva Rosa's opinion, which was challenged by Shatzky in a later editorial, the Gazeta was the basis for Die Kuranten. Shatzky instead postulated that the model for Die Kuranten was Haarlemse Courant , a gentile paper published concurrently. [21]

Disappearance

During World War II, the library of the synagogue, including the book containing the issues of Die Kuranten was transported to Germany. They were returned to the synagogue in 1946. [6] In 1969, it was displayed as part of an exhibit on the history of the Yiddish-language press in Germany and the Netherlands at the Anne Frank House. Following its one and only public display at the Anne Frank House, the volume went missing in the 1970s and has never been found. [2] [6] It is possible that the book was stolen from the library directly, or that it was lost when the contents of the library were shipped from Amsterdam to the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem in 1978. [6] Photographs and photocopies of the paper exist and are preserved at the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in the University of Amsterdam, and microfilms are kept in the Amsterdam city archives, along with several other libraries in the Netherlands and internationally. [2]

Content

Format

The pages of the paper, per the book found by Montezinos, were 170 millimetres (6.7 in) by 98 millimetres (3.9 in); each page was divided into two columns, separated by a line, and each column contained 38 lines. According to Seeligmann, the Kuranten was printed on double octavo sheets. [6] [22] The type was set in the cursive, run-on font that was used most commonly for publications in Yiddish between the 16th and 19th centuries. [23]

When Tartas took over the paper, he included the Amsterdam coat of arms between the words Dinstagishe/Fraytagishe and Kuranten. The Jewish year also became included as part of the header of each issue. [6]

Die Kuranten as a Jewish newspaper

While the Spanish Gazeta de Amsterdam (1672) or the Italian Gazzetta d'Amsterdam (1673) or are considered by some as the first Jewish newspaper, it has been argued that these were only printed by a Jew; Die Kuranten would be considered the first paper published for Jews. [6] [24] Both the Gazeta and the Gazzetta were published by de Castro Tartas. An analysis of the archived Gazeta editions from 1675 showed that the content and form of the Gazeta was comparable to that of the Amsterdamsche Courant and the French-language La Gazette d'Amsterdam ; it mainly contained international news, particularly about wars, followed by economic reports, sparse news from Spain, and an absence of news about Jews. [6]

Mau Kopuit, the chief editor of the Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, described Die Kuranten as the "Grandmother of the Jewish press" (Dutch : Grootmoeder van de joodse pers) and the Spanish and Italian publications as her "stepsisters" that were, halachically, not Jewish publications as they were not interested for the Jewish community but rather for merchants interested in trade reports. [25]

Legacy

After Die Kuranten folded, a Yiddish-language periodical was not published until January 1781 with the printing of Vokhentlikhe Berikhtn . [26]

Related Research Articles

Levites or Levi are Jewish males who claim patrilineal descent from the Tribe of Levi. The Tribe of Levi descended from Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah. The surname Halevi, which consists of the Hebrew definite article "ה" Ha- ('the') plus Levi ('Levite'), is not conclusive regarding being a Levite; a titular use of HaLevi indicates being a Levite. The daughter of a Levite is a Bat Levi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paradesi Jews</span> Ethnic group

Paradesi Jews refer to Jewish immigrants to the Indian subcontinent during the 15th and 16th centuries following the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal. Paradesi means foreign in Malayalam and Tamil. These Sephardic immigrants fled persecution and death by burning in the wake of the 1492 Alhambra Decree and King Manuel's 1496 decree expelling Jews from Portugal. They are sometimes referred to as "White Jews", although that usage is generally considered pejorative or discriminatory and refers to relatively recent Jewish immigrants, predominantly Sephardim.

Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the few centuries following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497. They should therefore be distinguished both from the descendants of those expelled in 1492 and from the present-day Jewish communities of Spain and Portugal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Athias</span>

Joseph Athias was a merchant, bookprinter and the publisher of a famous Hebrew Bible which was approved by States-General of the Dutch Republic and both Jewish and Christian theologians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in the Netherlands</span> Jewish life in Holland

The history of the Jews in the Netherlands largely dates to the late 16th century and 17th century, when Sephardic Jews from Portugal and Spain began to settle in Amsterdam and a few other Dutch cities, because the Netherlands was an unusual center of religious tolerance. Since Portuguese Jews had not lived under rabbinic authority for decades, the first generation of those embracing their ancestral religion had to be formally instructed in Jewish belief and practice. This contrasts with Ashkenazi Jews from central Europe, who, although persecuted, lived in organized communities. Seventeenth-century Amsterdam was referred to as the "Dutch Jerusalem" for its importance as a center of Jewish life. In the mid 17th century, Ashkenazi Jews from central and eastern Europe migrated. Both groups migrated for reasons of religious liberty, to escape persecution, now able to live openly as Jews in separate organized, autonomous Jewish communities under rabbinic authority. They were also drawn by the economic opportunities in the Netherlands, a major hub in world trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johann Leusden</span> Dutch Calvinist theologian and orientalist

Johannes Leusden was a Dutch Calvinist theologian and orientalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands</span>

The community of Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands, particularly in Amsterdam, was of major importance in the seventeenth century. The Portuguese Jews in the Netherlands did not refer to themselves as "Sephardim", but rather as "Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation." The Portuguese-speaking community grew from conversos, Jews forced to convert to Catholicism in Spain and Portugal, who rejudaized under rabbinical authority, to create an openly self-identified Portuguese Jewish community. As a result of the expulsions from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1496, as well as the religious persecution by the Inquisition that followed, many Spanish and Portuguese Jews left the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century, in search of religious freedom. Some migrated to the newly independent Dutch provinces which allowed Jews to become residents. Many Jews who left for the Dutch provinces were crypto-Jews. Others had been sincere New Christians, who, despite their conversion, were targeted by Old Christians as suspect. Some of these sought to return to the religion of their ancestors. Ashkenazi Jews began migrating to the Netherlands in the mid-seventeenth century, but Portuguese Jews viewed them with ambivalence.

This article describes the principal types of religious Jewish music from the days of the Temple to modern times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Amsterdam</span>

The History of the Jews in Amsterdam focuses on the historical center of the Dutch Jewish community, comprising both Portuguese Jews originally from both Spain and Portugal and Ashkenazi Jews, originally from central Europe. The two separate groups have had a continuing presence since the seventeenth century. Amsterdam has been called a Jerusalem of the West and the "Dutch Jerusalem". The Holocaust in the Netherlands devastated the Jewish community, with the Nazis murdering some 75% of the approximately 80,000 Jews at time present in Amsterdam, but the community has managed to rebuild a vibrant and living Jewish life for its approximately 15,000 present members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sephardic Haredim</span> Jewish ethnic and religious group

Sephardic Haredim are Jews of Sephardi and Mizrahi descent who are adherents of Haredi Judaism. Sephardic Haredim today constitute a significant stream of Haredi Judaism, alongside the Hasidim and Lita'im. An overwhelming majority of Sephardic Haredim reside in Israel, where Sephardic Haredi Judaism emerged and developed. Although there is a lack of consistency in many of the statistics regarding Haredim in Israel, it is thought that some 20% of Israel's Haredi population are Sephardic Haredim. This figure is disputed by Shas, which claims that the proportion is "much higher than 20%", and cites voting patterns in Haredi cities to support its position.

Jekuthiel ben Isaac Blitz was a rabbi who made the first whole translation of the Hebrew Bible into Yiddish.

David ben Abraham de Castro Tartas was a Portuguese Jewish printer in Amsterdam. Between 1662 and 1701 his press printed the Gazeta de Amsterdam, a newspaper of the exiled Jewish community.

Joseph David Wijnkoop was a Dutch rabbi and scholar in Jewish studies. He was a pupil of Rabbi Jacob Moses Content (1818–1898). Among the Jews of Amsterdam, he was known and respected for his liberal and practical ideas.

The Dutch Israelite Religious Community of The Hague is the Ashkenazi Orthodox Jewish community in The Hague and is a member of the Nederlands-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap (NIK).

Moses Uri ben Yoseph HaLevi, also Moses Uri Levi or Moses Uri Halewi or Philip Uri Joosten Halevi [not to be confused with Moses ben Joseph ben Merwan Ha-Levi] was originally a German rabbi who become an instrumental figure and a key founder of the Spanish-Portuguese community of Amsterdam. Born likely in the German city of Wittmund, Germany or Braunschweig, in the year 1602 he became the first chief rabbi of the Jewish Community of Amsterdam. He is considered to be the founder of the first Jewish community in Amsterdam and the first rabbi of a Sephardic community in Northern Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moses Curiel</span>

Don Moses Curiel (1620-1697), in Dutch Mozes Curiël, alias Jeronimo Nunes da Costa, was a Sephardic Jewish nobleman, diplomat, and wealthy merchant, who traded in diamonds, sugar and tobacco.

Der Beobachter an der Weichsel — Dostrzegacz Nadwiślański was the first Jewish newspaper. It was a weekly printed in Congress Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, between December 3, 1823 and November 29, 1824, 44 issues in total, with a circulation of 150 copies.

Solomon de Oliveyra was a Dutch rabbi, poet, and philologist. He has been described as the "preeminent and omnipresent Hebrew poet of Jewish Amsterdam" in the late seventeenth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Hirsch Dünner</span> Dutch Jewish leader and scholar

Joseph Hirsch Dünner was a Dutch Jewish leader and scholar, who served as Chief Rabbi of North Holland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Menahem Amelander</span> Dutch-Jewish author and historian

Menahem Mann Ben Solomon ha-Levi Amelander was a Dutch-Jewish author and historian of the 18th century. He died before 1767.

References

  1. ↑ Onlineredaktion (8 June 2015). "Lesen in der Mameloshn". Wina – Das jüdische Stadtmagazin (in German). Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Pach, Hilde; פאך, הילדה (2005). "פריחתה הקצרה של העיתונות הידית בהולנד / The Short-lived Blossoming of the Yiddish Press in the Netherlands". Iggud: Selected Essays in Jewish Studies / איגוד: מבחר מאמרים במדעי היהדות. יד: 25*–33*. ISSN   2310-7685. JSTOR   23533539.
  3. ↑ Madison, Charles Allan (1968). Yiddish Literature: Its Scope and Major Writers. F. Ungar Publishing Company. p. 27. ISBN   978-0-8044-2584-1.
  4. ↑ Kaplan, Yosef (2008). The Dutch Intersection: The Jews and the Netherlands in Modern History. BRILL. pp. 214–217. ISBN   978-90-04-14996-0.
  5. ↑ Liptzin, 1972, 41
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Pach-Oosterbroek, Hilde (2014). Arranging reality: The editing mechanisms of the world's first Yiddish newspaper, the Kurant (Amsterdam, 1686–1687) (Thesis). Amsterdam School of Historical Studies .
  7. 1 2 Paul, Geoffrey (1986). The Jewish press: past, present and future: Reflections on a recent symposium. Vol. 33. Jewish Quarterly. pp. 21–23.
  8. ↑ Noci, Javier Díaz (5 May 2020). "Gazeta de Amsterdam: History and content analysis". Historia y Comunicación Social. 25 (1): 67–78. doi: 10.5209/hics.62466 . hdl: 10230/44822 . ISSN   1988-3056. S2CID   225894245.
  9. ↑ Baron, Salo Wittmayer; Research, American Academy for Jewish (1975). ספר היובל לכבוד שלום בארון (in English and Hebrew). American Academy for Jewish Research. p. 2. ISBN   978-0-231-03911-6.
  10. ↑ Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld 1987, p. 242.
  11. ↑ Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld 1987, p. 236-237.
  12. ↑ Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld 1987, p. 237.
  13. ↑ Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld 1987, p. 234.
  14. ↑ Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld 1987, p. 235.
  15. ↑ Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld 1987, p. 236.
  16. ↑ Aptroot, Marion (1989). Bible Translation as Cultural Reform: The Amsterdam Yiddish Bibles 1678-1679. University of Oxford. p. 80.
  17. ↑ Berger, Shlomo (2009). "Books for the Masses: The Amsterdam Yiddish Book Industry, 1650–1800". European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe. 42 (2): 24–33. doi:10.3167/ej.2009.420205. ISSN   0014-3006. JSTOR   41444027.
  18. 1 2 3 Pach, Hilde (2007). "Moushe's Choices: Was the Compositor of the Oldest Yiddish Newspaper a Creator or an Epigone?". Studia Rosenthaliana. 40: 195–204. doi:10.2143/SR.40.0.2028844. ISSN   0039-3347. JSTOR   41482511.
  19. ↑ "The Pakn Treger". The Pakn Treger. No. 50. National Yiddish Book Center. 2006. pp. 8–10.
  20. ↑ Smith, Mark L. (December 2021). "Two Views of Yiddish Culture in the Netherlands". Studia Rosenthaliana. 47 (2): 117–138. doi:10.5117/SR2021.2.002.SMIT (inactive 1 November 2024).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
  21. ↑ Shatzky, Jacob (1937). Zamlbukh lekoved dem tsṿey hunderṭ un fuftsiḳsṭn yoyvl fun der Yidisher prese, 1686–1936 (in Yiddish). Amapṭeyl fun Yidishn Ṿisenshafṭlekhn Insṭiṭuṭ. OCLC   1011169272.
  22. ↑ Seeligmann, Sigmund (1906). Ueber die erste jüdische Ansiedlung in Amsterdam (in German). Sonderabzug. p. 7.
  23. ↑ Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld 1987, p. 7.
  24. ↑ Sarna, Jonathan (April 1995). "The History of the Jewish Press in North America" (PDF). Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies: 2.
  25. ↑ "Nieuw Israelietisch weekblad". 15 November 1985. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  26. ↑ Erfdeel, Stichting Ons (1993). "The Low Countries: Arts and Society in Flanders and the Netherlands, a Yearbook". Arts and Society in Flanders and the Netherlands, a Yearbook. Flemish-Netherlands Foundation "Stichting Ons Erfdeel,". p. 129. ISBN   978-90-75862-95-9.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.