0404 - Beginning of Algemeiner Journal

00:01 There is a newspaper in Yiddish called The Allgemeine Journal, as everyone knows. I just wanna tell the background a little bit behind The Allgemeine Journal. A lot of the things I didn't see firsthand, I didn't even hear it firsthand. But at the time when this happened, it was so f- meforsim, so famous in 770, and everyone knew it, so there must be truth to it. Uh, many of the details I don't know. People who were involved probably do know. But I just wanna say over what 770 knew, what everyone was talking about, and how it was. There used to be two separate Jewish newspapers in Yiddish, one called Der Tog, one called Morgen Journal. But after years, these are many, many years ago, after years, they joined, and it became one daily newspaper called Der Tog Morgen Journal. And Reb Gershon Ber Jacobson, who was a beautiful writer, was one of the writers in that newspaper. At one point, the newspaper closed down. They said it was fin-- for financial reasons, but I don't know exactly. It closed down. Soon as it closed down, right away, the Satmar Hasidim took oppor- took the opportunity, took advantage, and opened up a daily newspaper in Yiddish. Till then, they only had a weekly newspaper once a week, and they opened up a daily newspaper because this newspaper closed. But after a month, they had to close it, and the way the rumor was, because they used to write, obviously, according to their own hashkafos, and for haMei

01:24 Na, for the masses, it didn't work, and therefore, they couldn't support it or whatever it is, but it closed down. After it closed down, and again, I'm repeating that this I don't know firsthand, but it was so meforsim that this is what happened, so I'm repeating it. After this closed down, the Rebbe gave over to Reb Gershon Ber, and he said, "Why don't you do it? You open a newspaper." And he suggested that he open the newspaper. This is not a newspaper that is Meitam Lubavitch. In other words, it's not an official Lubavitch newspaper that only says the hashkaf of Lubavitch. It's a Yiddish newspaper, a frumme newspaper written in Yiddish, written by, edited by a Lubavitcher person of Lubavitcher mitzvahs. So obviously, a lot of things there will be Lubavitch, but it's not limited to Lubavitch because it's not an official at all, an official Lubavitcher thing that comes from Lubavitch, which has to fit everywhere, it has to fit to Lubavitch. And the Rebbe suggested that he should open one. And the Rebbe even was surprised why no one thought of it, and he has to say it. That's the way the rumor was. Again, might be people who were inside know much better and know different. This is the way it was. Then it came to a question what name to give it. So they gave to the Rebbe all kinds of suggestions of a name. And the Rebbe wrote, I think, or maybe said, ba'al peh, that he's surprised why no

02:37 one thought of this name, Der Allgemeine Journal, in order to show that this is not something specific from a specific group. Allgemeine means it's the general, it's a journal, general. Now, this is not a daily newspaper, but it took the place of the daily newspaper then of Der Tog Morgen Journal because it's in the same format. So the Rebbe said, "Why not call it... Surprised why they didn't call it... No one thought of calling it Der Allgemeine Journal." And that's how it got the name. Or I heard that some of the hesitations on this name, Der Allgemeine Journal, is because when you refer to it, it's hard to refer to it. When you would write it says, "In Der Allgemeine Journal," it doesn't fit in Yiddish. Yiddish, you have to say, if the word Allgemeine Journal means a general journal, you would say, "Ze scheit in dem Allgemeine Journal." But the name of it is Der Allgemeine Journal, so it's a little bit hard when you have to refer to it how to use the name. So that's what I heard then, that there was some hesitation, but that's what the Rebbe said, and that's how it stayed. And from then on started this Allgemeine Journal, who was run, and the whole thing was by Reb Gershon Ber Jacobson, and he wrote a lot of things about the Rebbe and all kinds of great things there. And a lot of the Rebbe's messages were there. But this was not an official under coming of the

03:51 auspices of Lubavitch, but it definitely was good for Lubavitcher hashkafa that it would tell what the Rebbe, and every time the Rebbe would say something, something new, they would put it there. They would put sichas of the Rebbe there. And even some people who are not Lubavitch would get the Rebbe sichas through The Allgemeine Journal because they would print every week a sicha of the Rebbe from the Kute Sichas. As a matter of fact, I would like to say this over, that I once, while I was talking to Reb Yankev Kamenetsky, who used to come to Miami every year, and he used to visit the yeshiva, I used to visit him, we became friendly. So he told me that he reads every week the sicha of the Rebbe in the Allgemeine Journal. And he says sometimes he even has ha'aras on it. And he tells me, for instance, in the one for Parsha Mishpotim, I had a ha'ara on the sicha there. And he's trying to remind himself what the sicha was about, and he turns around to me, he said, "What was the sicha in the Allgemeine Journal on Parsha Mishpotim?" So I told him, "I don't know." He says, "Ir veyst nit?" He looks at me surprised, "You're Lubavitcher, you don't know?" So I told him, "I know the sichas that I do know is this from the Kute Sichas. I don't know it from the, the newspaper." But he started thinking. He reminded himself what the sicha was. It was 1000-Daled BeHe.

05:01 My sherba said that if someone steals an ax or a sheep, and he shechts it or he sells it, he has to pay not double, but four or five times. So the Rebbe has a whole beer wide, and he had a shaila on the sicha, and I answered him the shaila. But he told me, "You see? I learned the sichas." So it did a lot for Lubavitch. It wasn't, or it isn't a f-official coming out of Lubavitch, but it has. But it all started because the Rebbe encouraged it. Here we have an opportunity that people will buy it because the other one stopped, so more chance people will buy it, and they will get the proper hashkafa. And this is the way it is meforsim. The beginning of The Allgemeine Journal came, but as I said, again, this is not firsthand, and that's it.