thumb|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). 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. It covered local news and news from other Jewish communities, including those as far away as India. Issues of the paper were discovered in 1902 by the librarian David Montezinos.
Die Kuranten is considered by some as the oldest Jewish newspaper, although others consider the Spanish-language ' from 1672 as the oldest Jewish newspaper. 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. 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.
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.
History
The first issue was published on 9 August 1686. 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. 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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
Legacy
After Die Kuranten folded, a Yiddish-language periodical was not published until January 1781 with the printing of Vokhentlikhe Berikhtn.
References
Sources
- Liptzin, Sol, A History of Yiddish Literature, Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY, 1972, .