East and West (magazine 1901–1923)

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Cover image of the magazine designed by EM Lilien (1901)

Ost und West was a Jewish cultural magazine published in German by the Berlin publisher S. Calvary from 1901 to 1923 .

Story and content

The magazine, which appeared in the first few years with the subtitle Illustrated Monthly for Modern Judaism , was dedicated to the documentation of artistic, literary and scientific achievements in the context of the Jewish Renaissance . In the sense of the programmatic title of the magazine, the assimilated Western Jews in particular should be conveyed to the cultural achievements of Eastern Jews .

The journal's contributors included a. Martin Buber , Ludwig Geiger , Samuel Lublinski , Max Nordau , Binjamin Segel , Alfred Nossig and Martin Philippson .

On the pages of East and West , Yiddish literature was published in German translation for the first time and presented to a larger audience. The translation into German was done by Theodor Zlocisti , among others . Another focus of the magazine was art criticism. There were regular reviews of Jewish artists and their work. Ost und West was also the first publication in the German-speaking Jewish press to publish photomechanical reproductions of works of art and photographs.

Davis Trietsch and Leo Winz acted as editors for East and West . The dual editorship of Trietsch and Winz only lasted until the end of 1902. The collaboration ended with the founding of the Jüdischer Verlag , of which Trietsch became the managing director, and Leo Winz assumed sole responsibility as editor and publisher. From 1904, Ost und West appeared in the magazine's own publishing house. Due to financial difficulties, Winz leased the magazine to the Haasenstein & Vogler advertising expedition in 1906 . Between 1907 and 1914, some pages of the magazine were used by the Alliance Israélite Universelle to publish their communications.

While the years before the outbreak of the First World War can be regarded as the most successful in East and West , the magazine went downhill significantly after the war. When the German economy collapsed due to hyperinflation in 1923 , that also meant the end for East and West . The title of the magazine served as the namesake for the 1923 film East and West by Sidney Goldin .

literature

  • David A. Brenner: Marketing Identities. The Invention of Jewish Ethnicity in “East and West” . Wayne State University Press, Detroit 1998, ISBN 0-8143-2684-6, excerpts online
  • Andrea Hopp: Between cultural pessimism and avant-garde. The cultural magazine as an indicator of the crisis of the fin de siècle . In: Michael Graetz, Aram Mattioli (ed.): Perceptions of crises in the fin de siècle. Jewish and Catholic educated elites in Germany and Switzerland . Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-905312-39-5 , pp. 303–321.
  • Gavriel D. Rosenfeld: Defining “Jewish Art” in East and West, 1901-1908. A Study in the Nationalization of Jewish Culture . In: Leo Baeck Institute (Ed.): Year Book , Vol. 39 (1994), ISSN  0075-8744 , pp. 83-110.
  • David A. Brenner: East and West. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 4: Ly-Po. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-02504-3 , pp. 455–459.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jim Hoberman: Bridge of Light. Yiddish Film between two Worlds. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, Penn. 1995, ISBN 1-566-39404-X , p. 66 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, November 14, 1991 to January 11, 1992, Museum of Modern Art , New York)