About The Jewish Advocate
The Jewish Advocate, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1902, was the oldest continually-circulated English-language Jewish newspaper in the United States until suspending publication after 118 years with the issue of September 25, 2020.
Based in downtown Boston, in the former Boston Post daily newspaper building (which, in its cellars four stories underground, still contains the century-old pulleys-and-lifts system equipment for the publishing presses of those days) overlooking what was known in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s as “newspaper row”, The Jewish Advocate has published weekly (and in some years twice a week) every week since its founding over one hundred years ago. The paper is the primary Jewish newspaper for the Greater Boston and Eastern Massachusetts metropolitan area, and for much of New England, with subscribers in all 50 states and 14 foreign countries.
The Jewish Advocate was founded by the Austrian journalist and founder of modern political Zionism, Theodor Herzl. Having founded the Vienna newspaper Die Welt and the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, Herzl sent his Executive Secretary Jacob deHaas to Boston several years later to start a newspaper which would “inculcate Judaism into the community and progress the cause of the re-establishment of the Jewish faith and a Jewish state.” The paper has been headed by only two families since that time.
In 1917 deHaas became national executive director of the newly organized Zionist Organization of America at the invitation of Louis D. Brandeis, who had just become president of the ZOA, and leadership of The Jewish Advocate passed to Dr. Alexander Brin, who, as a national reporter for the former Boston Traveler daily newspaper, had become well-known through his coverage of the Leo Frank case in Atlanta, Georgia. A year later The Jewish Advocate played a leading role in supporting the appointment of Brandeis as the first Jewish justice on the Supreme Court of the United States, and nearly thirty years later in the establishment of Brandeis University.
Through the next years Jewish population in Boston boomed and The Jewish Advocate became a household companion in virtually every Jewish home. In the years before the Holocaust The Jewish Advocate, virtually alone among the media, warned of the coming of Hitler and the great danger which that would pose for the Jewish people.
Subsequently the paper played an important leading role in uniting the nascent Jewish organizations that helped to rebuild the lives of Jewish refugees and establish the new State of Israel. This was the defining role of The Jewish Advocate throughout the decades of the 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s when the paper was at the forefront of every aspect of the Jewish community’s social and religious issues and movements.
In the years following the 1960’s and until today The Jewish Advocate continued to serve as a primary source of news and information as well as a forum for discussion and debate, providing lines of communication uniting the community and supporting the efforts aimed at reinvigorating and broadening Jewish religious and cultural life.
The award-winning Advocate covers local, national and international events and serves a broad range of organizations and individuals with its lively mix of news, features and opinions.
The Jewish Advocate has been the voice of the Jewish community in New England, and readers of all backgrounds and faiths have relied on the paper for more than one hundred years to stay up-to-date and informed about Jewish life in New England and to learn about and debate issues of concern to the Jewish Community in Boston, the US, Israel and around the world.
In its issue of September 25, 2020 announcing suspension of publication, the paper announced plans being developed to launch a new digital edition of The Jewish Advocate focused on advocacy, to Advocate for Jews, the Jewish community and for the State of Israel, so as thereby to continue the mission envisioned by Theodor Herzl in founding The Jewish Advocate 118 years ago “to inculcate Judaism into the community and progress the cause of the re-establishment of the Jewish faith and a Jewish state.” It is our intention to also provide an independent forum for primarily Greater Boston news about our community and various organizations, and importantly, debate and discussion of the issues, organization and programs in our community.
The Jewish Advocate has also reached agreement with NewsBank (a premier information source for more than 45 years serving colleges and universities, schools, military and government libraries, and professionals around the world, providing archived information from thousands of newspapers, business journals, periodicals, government documents and other publications) to include the complete archives of The Jewish Advocate in its library, and make it accessible to the general public. NewsBank is currently in the process of digitizing our paper’s archives and we anticipate having them online some time in 2021.
The Jewish Advocate organization, tax exempt status, trademark, and website are being maintained and will be active for the foreseeable future both as re-launch plans are being developed and in the hope that funding may materialize or our communal organizations and federation might reconsider restoring their support, in which case the paper will resume publishing as soon as possible thereafter.
PUBLISHERS OF THE JEWISH ADVOCATE:
| Jacob deHass | 1902-1917 |
| Alexander Brin | 1917-1980 |
| Joseph G. Brin, Co-Publisher | 1917-1952 |
| Joseph G. Weisberg | 1980-1984 |
| Bernard J. Hyatt | 1984-1990 |
| Grand Rabbi Y. A. Korff | 1990- |
The Jewish Advocate is a charitable 501(c)(3) organization supported by community organizations and generous contributors.
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