 Front page of an 1890 edition | |
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Launched | July 4, 1890 |
| Political alignment | Anarchism |
| Language | Yiddish |
| Ceased publication | December 4, 1977 (87 years) |
| City | New York City |
| Country | United States |
| ISSN | 0016-0733 |
| OCLC number | 2739515 |
Freie Arbeiter Stimme (Daytshmerish spelling of Yiddish: פֿרייע אַרבעטער שטימע romanized: Fraye arbeṭer shṭime, lit. 'Free Voice of Labor' also spelled with an extra mem פֿרייע אַרבעטער שטיממע) was a Yiddish-language anarchist newspaper published from New York City's Lower East Side between 1890 and 1977. It was among the world's longest running anarchist journals, and the primary organ of the Jewish anarchist movement in the United States; at the time that it ceased publication it was the world's oldest Yiddish newspaper. Historian of anarchism Paul Avrich described the paper as playing a vital role in Jewish–American labor history and upholding a high literary standard, having published the most lauded writers and poets in Yiddish radicalism. The paper's editors were major figures in the Jewish–American anarchist movement: David Edelstadt, Saul Yanovsky, Joseph Cohen, Hillel Solotaroff, Roman Lewis, and Moshe Katz.
Protesting against the injustices of the Haymarket trial, Jewish anarchists in New York formed the Pioneers of Liberty to support the defendants. From this effort, area anarchist groups resolved to publish Fraye Arbeter Shtime, which would become an amalgam of labor paper, literary magazine, and journal of radical opinion. The group held an annual December conference with anarchists and socialists, as well as events like the Yom Kippur ball. Interest in the paper mirrored Jewish–American interest in anarchism, surging in the 1880s/90s, experiencing its heyday in the 1910s/20s, and declining between and afterwards through its demise in the 1970s. The paper struggled financially in its early years and went dormant in the late 1890s. The paper thrived under Yanovsky in the 20th century's first two decades, with a high literary standard and circulation of 20,000 before the Great War. It retained its quality through the 20s under Cohen, but by the 30s, the Jewish anarchist movement grew more conciliatory, less revolutionary. The paper slowed its cadence from weekly to fortnightly to monthly before fading out of existence with the rest of the movement in the mid-1970s.