A Jewish Daily in Yiddish published in New-York. The wahrheit ("The Truth") was founded by Louis E. Miller, who was one of Abraham Cahan's partners in the foundation of The Forward in 1897. Six years later, in 1903, they parted ways.
In 1905 Miller founded The wahrheit, engaging a number of the better Yiddish writers as contributors, among them Chaim Zhitlowsky, Nahman Sirkin and Joel Entin. Aiming to compete with The Forward, he stated at the outset that he would pursue a socialist policy. After a short while he realized his inability to draw readers away from The Forward, and that his best chance to succeed was with the literary and liberal elements.
Having abandoned his socialist position, Miller began to stress Jewish nationalism and to promote Jewish Culture. This made The wahrheit the standard bearer of liberal and literary readers. He did lose his radical reading crowd; however, for nearly a decade the more intelligent members of the Jewish middle class supported the newspaper loyally.
When World War I started in 1914, Miller was the only Yiddish editor to favor the Allies. Most of his readers, still strongly opposed to Czarist Russia, were antagonized by his position, and many stopped reading and buying the newspaper. The financial backers of the newspaper, alarmed at the prospective loss of their investment, relieved Miller of his editorship. But the damage was done, and The wahrheit never recovered, and in 1919 it was merged with Der Tog.
This short forward is based on
Jewish Publishing in America: The Impact of Jewish Writing on American Culture by Charles A. Madison, pp. 124-126.