127 issues (unbound) of the ‘Di Yidishe Shtima’ – “The Jewish Voice” – Kaunas – the first Zionist daily newspaper in independent Lithuania – issues published for two years – between the years 1920 – 1922 (some Consecutive).
די אידישע שטימע was a daily Yiddish newspaper published in Kaunas between 1919 and 1940. First and foremost to the Jewish press in the First Lithuanian Republic and the first Zionist daily newspaper in independent Lithuania. The first issue was published on July 21, 1919, edited by Leib Garfunkel in collaboration with Mordechai Itkonsky, later the director of Keren Hayesod. The newspaper was founded by the Zionist Organization in Lithuania but was in fact the recognized journal of Lithuanian Jewry in general. It served as a stage for writers, poets, publicists and journalists from all the parties. The first issues appeared in primitive printing conditions, in two small pages and in large letters. Sometimes the newspaper was printed on colored paper due to a lack of white paper. The payment collected for the newspaper was in German Pfennig – from the remnants of the German occupation of Lithuania in the First World War. The newspaper would appear at noon with a date of the next day. In the 1920s, the paper grew, both in the number of pages and in the variety of articles and topics that appeared in it. For many years it was the only Jewish newspaper in the country and was also considered the gateway to the Jewish world for Lithuanian Jewry, which was cut off from Poland and Jewish Vilna. It was the only source of news from the big world for the masses of Lithuanian Jews in those years. The newspaper also provided an important platform for reporting on the extensive Zionist activity in the Land of Israel. In early July 1940, with the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Reuven Rubinstein was expelled from the system and imprisoned five days later, and exiled to a labor camp in Воркута in the Komi Republic. And on August 1, 1940, the readers of “De Yidishe Shtima” were informed that this was the last issue of the newspaper.
127 sheets 51 cm. Slight tears in the margins of some of the sheets. general condition good.
