In the two decades, beginning in 1921,
Newark's large and growing Jewish population had its own Yiddish-English
weekly newspaper, The Jewish Morning Star/Yiddisher Morgenstern.
It billed itself as "The First and Oldest Yiddish-English
Newspaper in New Jersey - Founded in 1921." The editor and
publisher was Dr. Isaac Unterman, PhD, LLB, a rabbi, attorney, author,
and noted scholar1.
The Morning Star was published and/or printed for most of its
life at 163 Prince Street, on the Montgomery - West Kinney Street
block, in the heart of Newark's old heavily-Jewish Third Ward.
According to the publisher's son and a Morning Star employee,
each issue ranged from four to twelve pages, and usually averaged
around eight pages.
It contained local Jewish news, plus the thinking of its editor/publisher
about Hebrew events and religion -- subjects on which Dr. Unterman
had written numerous books in English, Jewish, and Hebrew.
The Morning Star also provided an outlet for those Newark-area
journalists, writers, and poets who were also contributing material
to the New York Jewish periodicals.
I was unable to see a copy of the paper, but a Morning Star letterhead
was made available to me which indicated the editorial offices had
later been moved to 163 Seymour Avenue, while the printing facilities
continued at 163 Prince Street.
The publisher's son, Ben, wore a number of hats at the Morning
Star including reporter, compositor, Linotyper, and pressman.
For his abilities as a Linotyper at the Morning Star, he had been
featured as "the world's faster Linotyper" in Ripley's
"Believe It or Not", and in John Hix's "
Strange As It Seems
". The syndicated Hix entry appeared in the Newark
Star-Ledger May 13, 1942. Both of the illustrated write-ups were
syndicated to newspapers worldwide.
The Morning Star probably ceased publication in the early 1940s2.
In a conversation with Ben Unterman, he told me that he still had
his 1934 Morning Star Press Card issued by the Newark Police Department.
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