The Yiddish-English Weekly Paper Published in Newark's Third Ward


by Nat Bodian

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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