The web has been accused of fostering monoculture, especially with regards to language, but it can also provide a niche for smaller groups to find an audience. As The New York Times reports, this may be the case for The Forward, a Yiddish-language paper that’s been running since 1897. While The Forward is cutting its print run back from weekly to every other week, it’s revamping its currently basic website, adding a daily podcast and blogs catering particularly to people learning Yiddish and to ultra-Orthodox Jews, who use Yiddish as a primary language. Editor Boris Sandler says the move means that “the world of Yiddish, which I thought was small and narrow, now engulfs the entire world.”
A century-old Yiddish newspaper takes to the web
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
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