Der Beobachter an der Weichsel — Dostrzegacz Nadwiślański (The Vistula Observer, in German and Polish) was the first[1] Jewish newspaper. It was a weekly printed in Congress Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, between December 3, 1823 and November 29, 1824, 44 issues in total, with a circulation of 150 copies.[2][3]
Launched by Polish Jewish writer, head of the Warsaw rabbinical seminary, and assimilation activist Anthony Eisenbaum, the paper was printed in two languages: Polish and German, the latter in Hebrew script. To this end, during the centenary celebration of the Yiddish press, Nahum Sokolow smugly noted that as early as 1686 a group of Polish Jews in Amsterdam printed a semi-weekly in a likewise way, i.e., in German in Hebrew script, "so that the centenary of the Yiddish press should have been celebrated more than a century ago".[1] Other researchers claim that the language was heavily Germanized Yiddish to the point of being described as German.[3] A.Haffka wrote that the newspaper was not very well accepted, because it was written not in Yiddish, but rather in German.[4] Others disliked the assimilationist character of the newspaper.[2]
The page layout of the divided into two columns by language with basically identical content. The paper was run single-handedly by Eisenbaum himself.[3]
The next Jewish newspaper in Russian Empire, Ha-Melitz, this time in Hebrew, appeared nearly 40 years later.[1]