Kasriel Hersch Sarasohn

SARASOHN, KASRIEL HERSCH (1835–1905), Yiddish and Hebrew newspaper publisher. Born in Suwalki province, Russia, he settled in New York in 1871, and in the following year founded a weekly paper, Di New Yorker Yidishe Tsaytung, which was unsuccessful. Two years later he founded the first American Yiddish weekly Di Yidishe Gazeten, which survived for more than half a century and paved the way for the first Yiddish daily in America, Yidishes Tageblat. This traditionally-oriented daily exerted a great influence upon the immigrant generation at the turn of the century and attained a circulation of 70,000 copies. Its editors included the journalist John Paley, *Tashrak and G. *Bublick. Its influence declined after World War I, and in 1928 it merged with the Morning-Journal. Sarasohn also founded a Hebrew weekly, Haivri, which he maintained from 1891 to 1898, despite annual deficits. In 1882 he organized a society for aiding Jewish immigrants, which in 1890 merged with the *Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).

Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.