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Sarajevo Jews celebrate a second Purim. For centuries, they weren’t alone.
(JTA) — Starting tonight, many Jews around the world will celebrate Purim in the same ways: by reading the story of the heroic Queen Esther, dressing in festive costumes and drinking alcohol.
For many of the 900 or so Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it will be the first of two annual Purim celebrations.
Since 1820, locals have also observed the Purim de Saray (Saray being a root of the word Sarajevo) early in the Hebrew calendar month of Cheshvan, which usually falls in October or November of the Gregorian calendar.
In that year, the story goes, a local dervish was murdered, prompting the corrupt Ottoman pasha of Sarajevo, a high-ranking official, to kidnap 11 prominent Jews, including the community’s chief rabbi, a kabbalist named Moshe Danon. The pasha accused them of the murder of the dervish — who had converted from Judaism to Islam — and held them for ransom, demanding 50,000 groschen of silver from the Jewish community.
But the pasha, who was a transplant from elsewhere in the Ottoman empire, deeply offended the multiethnic populace of Sarajevo, who considered the Jewish community — then around one-fifth of the city’s entire population — an essential part of their home. So local Jews, Muslims and Christians rebelled together, storming the pasha’s palace and freeing the imprisoned community leaders.
Ever since, Bosnian Jews have celebrated that story by visiting the grave of the Sarajevan Jewish historian Zeki Effendi, who was the first to document it. Dozens also take part in a pilgrimage every summer to the grave of Rabbi Danon, who is buried in the south of Bosnia, not far from the Croatian border, where he died on his way to what was then Ottoman-controlled Palestine.
For centuries, several other Jewish communities around the world observed their own versions of Purim based on stories of local resistance to antisemitism, inspired by Esther and her uncle Mordecai, who in the original holiday story save all of Persia’s Jews from execution in the 5th century BCE.
Here are the stories behind some of those traditions.
Ancona, Italy
An aerial view of Ancona in 2006. (Wikimedia Commons)
Jews settled in and around Ancona on Italy’s Adriatic coast in the 10th century, and by the 13th century they had established a flourishing community, which included figures such as the Jewish traveler Jacob of Ancona — who may have beaten Marco Polo to China — and famed poet Immanuel the Roman, who despite his title was born in a town just south of Ancona.
Though the city’s Jewish community was largely spared by the Holocaust, it has slowly declined over the years and is believed to have fewer than 100 members today. What it is not short on, however, are local Purim stories — the city is known for multiple celebrations that were established over the centuries.
The first, marked on the 21st of the Hebrew month of Tevet (usually in January) was established at the end of the 17th century and marks an earthquake that nearly destroyed the city.
“On the 21st of Teveth, Friday evening, of the year 5451 (1690), at 8 and a quarter, there was a powerful earthquake. The doors of the temple were immediately opened and in a few moments it was filled with men, women and children, still half-naked and barefoot, who came to pray to the Eternal in front of the Holy Ark. A true miracle then took place in the Temple: there was only one light, which remained lit until it was possible to provide for it,” wrote Venetian Rabbi Yosef Fiammetta in 1741, in his text “Or Boqer,” meaning “the light of the morning.”
Other Ancona Purims were established a half and three-quarters of a century later, respectively. The story for the first commemorates fires that nearly destroyed the local synagogue but miraculously did not, and the next tells of a pogrom that nearly destroyed the community as Napoleon marched through Italy during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Today, these stories have largely faded into memory. But a few centuries ago, Italy had a high concentration of communities that celebrated local Purims — including in Casale Monferrato, Ferrara, Florence, Livorno, Padua, Senigallia, Trieste, Urbino, Verona and Turin — some into the 20th century.
“It would be hoped that the local Purims are not forgotten or that they are restored in the communities that have not completely died out,” the late Italian Rabbi Yehuda Nello Pavoncello once wrote, according to the Turin Jewish Community, “so that the memory of the events reconnects us to the infinite links of the chain of the generations that have preceded us, who have suffered.”
North Africa
An illustration shows King Sebastian of Portugal being fatally wounded at a battle in Morocco in 1578. (Bettmann/Getty Images)
The extra Purim phenomenon was not confined to Europe.
In Tripoli, Libya, local Jews established the so-called Purim Barghul after the deposition of a local tyrant in the late 18th century. Ali Burghul, an Ottoman officer who was installed after the downfall of the Qaramanli dynasty, ruled the region brutally for two years, treating minorities particularly harshly. After factions of the Qaramanlis were reconciled, Burghul was driven out. Jews would go on to celebrate that day, the 29th of Tevet (usually in January).
(Centuries later, in 1970, dictator Muammar Gaddafi established his own holiday, the Day of Revenge, which celebrated the expulsion of Italian officials from Libya; some say it also celebrated the exodus of Jews since the formation of the state of Israel. Within a few years after Gaddafi’s decree, Libya’s Jewish community had dwindled to less than two dozen, effectively ending the nearly 3,000-year history of Jews there.)
In northern Morocco, Jews commemorated the defeat of a Portuguese king, Don Sebastian, who attempted to take over parts of the country but was defeated in a battle in August 1578. Jews had believed that Sebastian would have tried to convert them to Christianity if he had prevailed.
Today only around 2,000 Jews remain in Morocco, but some Moroccan communities marked the day into the 21st century.
Saragossa
A view of an 11th-century palace in Zaragoza, Spain. The Purim of Saragossa story is set in either Zaragoza or Syracuse, Italy. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Scholars still debate which city was the origin of the Purim of Saragossa story — it could have been Zaragoza in Spain or Syracuse in southern Sicily, which was often referred to in the medieval era as Siragusa. Both cities were part of the Spanish empire in 1492 and were depopulated of Jews following the Inquisition.
Either way, Sephardic descendants in places around the world, including Israel and the Turkish city of Izmir, observed their own Purim story by fasting on the 16th of the Hebrew month of Shevat — generally in February — and feasting on the 17th.
The story tells of an apostate named Marcus who slandered the Jewish community to a non-Jewish king, putting their status in jeopardy. But at the last minute, Marcus’ deception is revealed, and he is executed while the community is saved.
The story could have been entirely fabricated. According to Jewish historian Elliot Horowitz, the establishment of this second Purim story may have been a way for the descendants of Saragossan Jews, whether they are originally Spanish or Sicilian, to maintain a unique identity in the larger Sephardic diaspora.
“The Jewish communities of the eastern Mediterranean in the early modern period were often composed of émigré subcommunities, each of which was distinguished by the customs and liturgy of its place of origin,” he wrote in his 2006 book “Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence.” “The ‘Purim of Saragossa,’ the earliest manuscript evidence for which dates only from the mid-eighteenth century, may well have been ‘invented’ by former ‘Saragossans’ eager to maintain their distinct identity in the multicultural Sephardi Diaspora of the eastern Mediterranean.”
Regardless of its origins, the Megillah of Saragossa text continued to be published through at least the end of the 19th century. It was well known enough that an American Reform rabbi from New York would publish a stage play based off of it in the 1940s.
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A Jewish audience applauded when this speaker called for Muslims to leave America. Here’s a better response.
A video from the Jewish American Summit in Los Angeles shows a speaker using wildly inflammatory, dehumanizing language to describe Muslims — as the Jewish American audience members stay silent, or applaud.
“I don’t want Muslims in America,” the activist Mosab Hassan Yousef said at the sold-out event last Sunday. “Get the f— out of the United States. Go back to the s—holes where you came from and reform your own countries.” Yousef, the son of a Hamas co-founder, converted from Islam to Christianity and worked for the Israelis for 10 years.
His words were horrifying. But the cheers arising from some in the room were even more jarring, as was the refusal of the event’s organizers and most of its sponsors and speakers to condemn Yousef’s hate speech.
As leaders of NewGround, an organization dedicated to building healthy relations between American Muslims and Jews, we know that the grief of Oct. 7, the days before it, and every day since in Gaza and elsewhere, is too much to bear. But we also know that when we choose to amplify or excuse rhetoric that dehumanizes our neighbors, we don’t just jeopardize their safety, we jeopardize our own.
We fuel a cycle of hatred that makes everyone less safe — including our loved ones. The impact isn’t necessarily direct, and it isn’t immediate. But it sets the stage for escalating rancor which can easily slip into violence.
Both our traditions teach that life is sacred. The Quran (5:32) and the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5) concur: To take a life — or destroy the dignity of a human being — is to destroy all of humanity; to uphold that dignity is to save all of humanity.
When we sit silently or applaud rhetoric that erases the humanity of the “other,” we are participating in a dangerous, destructive feedback loop: You hurt me, so I must hurt you to keep myself safe. Circulating exaggerations, expelling our neighbors, silencing and deporting our political opponents in the pursuit of security will only leave us all increasingly isolated, vulnerable, and broken.
That is why relationships across communities matter, especially when they are difficult. Meeting one another, challenging false claims, letting go of our rigid certainty, holding our own leaders accountable and refusing to let fear define entire groups are not symbolic gestures. They are active practices to keep isolation from hardening into hostility.
At the same time, we need to confront those who deliberately exploit fear and misinformation to pull communities further apart. If we want others to stand up for us, we have to stand up for them, especially when hateful rhetoric comes from within our own circles.
That didn’t happen when Yousef made his vile remarks at the Jewish American Summit. As Louis Keene reported in the Forward, there were no boos, only applause. Afterwards, only two co-sponsoring organizations — the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Federation Los Angeles — criticized his remarks.
But our communities need even more than just condemnations of hate speech. We need a substantial, structural response. We need teshuvah — a process of self-reflection and return to integrity in which many Jews engage as Rosh Hashanah approaches.
This is not a theoretical exercise, nor a process limited to Jews. It is a human endeavor. The Quran echoes similar teachings — “Indeed, God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves.” (Quran 13:11)
At NewGround, we see this work happening on the ground every day. The people in our programs challenge one another. They engage in a rigorous, often agonizing process of naming their truths, navigating anti-Palestinian racism and antisemitism, and honoring the humanity of the person sitting across from them. They communicate through their disagreements — especially when it is difficult.
The recent shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego took place the day after our current fellows’ Israel Palestine intensive. Our fellows rallied around our Muslim community members, as they had around the Jewish fellows during our first intensive when news of the Bondi Beach massacre hit. Several of our current fellows and alumni mobilized networks in solidarity gatherings at Friday congregational prayers at the Islamic Center of Southern California and Masjid al-Thoir in Koreatown. Fellows traveled to vigils and to the mosque in San Diego to show support. After the vandalism of a mural this summer at the Pasadena Jewish Temple Center, NewGround fellows showed up to stand in solidarity, once again.
Real teshuvah requires more than just responding to harm. It requires taking steps to prevent harm from occurring again. It means asking ourselves: Why do we uplift speakers who stoke hatred? What safeguards can we implement to ensure we are not providing a platform for division? In pursuit of our own safety, are we inadvertently endangering other communities, and can we change our approach to foster mutual care? If we are not exceptionally thoughtful, we will undermine the shared society we seek to build.
The two of us have spent 20 years convening Muslims and Jews who can do the deep, courageous work of truth-telling and listening. We know that real change only happens when we don’t shy away from challenging perspectives, but instead dive deeper into them.
This work requires the courage to stand in one’s truth while respecting and listening to those who may hold opposing viewpoints. It requires the grace to acknowledge the anger and grief we all carry, and the discipline to channel that energy into building — rather than destroying.
We invite our community leaders, especially those who organize and sponsor meetings like the American Jewish Summit, to join us in this work. Stop choosing animosity. Choose instead to interrupt it. The safety of our children and grandchildren depends on whether we continue to build higher walls, or commit to building resilient bridges.
The post A Jewish audience applauded when this speaker called for Muslims to leave America. Here’s a better response. appeared first on The Forward.
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‘You would have thought Jews were being targeted, but no, Mom — It was America.’
Dear Mom,
The anniversary of 9/11 falls on Rosh Hashanah this year. It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years since you’ve been gone when you are constantly on my mind. Even though you’re buried next to Dad in Florida, I don’t need to visit your grave on the anniversary of your death; I talk to you almost daily. We had a special relationship, you and I, one that didn’t include Dad or little sister Ellen. We protected one another and shared potato pierogies and corned beef sandwiches even until the very end.
Mom, I cannot understand what the hell happened that day. In a way, I’m glad you weren’t alert and had no clue because you would have freaked out. I know you would have thought Jews were being targeted, but no, Mom. It was America.
I saw the planes go into the buildings and watched the towers come down. We ran when they told us to get out. You, thankfully, were at Village Nursing Home. I couldn’t imagine wheeling you up Greenwich Street fast enough to get away from that ball of dust.
When I returned the next day, our building was in lockdown. You wouldn’t have been able to go home. And where would I have put you?
I didn’t want you to be moved into hospice; I fought tooth and nail to keep you at Village Nursing. The staff knew you and had become comfortable with our family’s deafness and how to communicate with us. I wished I could take care of you myself. I knew what you liked, what you would eat, how to bathe you. But you couldn’t eat anymore, and I could barely lift you.
Every day after volunteering a few hours at Ground Zero, I came to see you. I hoped you would open your eyes or talk to me, but you lay motionless. Even when I lay beside you, you didn’t respond. You could feel me. I knew that. I watched you wither away day after day.
And now it’s Rosh Hashanah. I remember how you placed the scarf on your head, lit the candles and in silence, said your prayers. You always told me Rosh Hashanah was the time to forgive and not carry baggage into the New Year. Easier said than done, right, Mom?
I also remember how you would break your fast with a Hershey’s Kiss or peanut M&M’s. You’d hide them in your pocket and, when you thought no one was looking, pop one into your mouth.
On Oct. 6, I came to see you after Ground Zero. That night, I lay beside you and put my hand on your arm. You pushed it away.
I thought I was dreaming. I tried again. With all the strength you could muster, you moved my hand away.
I knew you were telling me to go. It was time to say goodbye.
I held you in an embrace and left.
Not long after I returned to my hotel, the nursing home called. You had passed.
Today, you would be wowed by all the changes and development around the old Twin Towers. I know you would still want to head over to our favorite pierogi place on Second Ave. So much has changed, but it’s still there.
The post ‘You would have thought Jews were being targeted, but no, Mom — It was America.’ appeared first on The Forward.
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How Warsaw became the center of Yiddish culture
אױפֿן שװעל פֿונעם צװאַנציקסטן יאָרהונדערט האָט װאַרשע געהאַט די גרעסטע צאָל ייִדישע תּושבֿים אין אײראָפּע, בערך אַ פֿערטל מיליאָן נפֿשות. אָבער די דאָזיקע באַפֿעלקערונג איז באַשטאַנען פֿון דרײַ פֿאַרשײדענע סאָציאַלע און קולטורעלע גרופּעס: אַסימילירטע פּױלישע ייִדן, חסידים און ליטװאַקעס. צװישן זיך האָבן זײ גערעדט ייִדיש, פּױליש, רוסיש און אַ ביסל דײַטש.
יאָאַנאַ נאַלעװאַיקאָ־קוליקאָװ (היסטאָרישער אינסטיטוט בײַ דער פּױלישער װיסנשאַפֿט־אַקאַדעמיע) באַװײַזט אין איר בוך „דאָס רעדן אין אונדזער אייגענעם נאָמען: ייִדישע פּרעסע און דאָס שאַפֿן פֿון דער ייִדישער נאַציאָנאַלער אידענטיטעט אינעם לאַנגן נײַנצנטן יאָרהונדערט“, אַז דװקא די טעגלעכע ייִדישע פּרעסע, װאָס איז אַנטשטאַנען אין די ערשטע צענדליק יאָר פֿונעם צװאַנציקסטן יאָרהונדערט, האָט געמאַכט ייִדיש פֿאַר דער כּלל־שפּראַך פֿון עפֿנטלעכע דיסקוסיעס אין דער ייִדישער סבֿיבֿה.
זי רופֿט דאָס אַ „סאָציאַלע רעװאָלוציע“ פֿאַר ייִדן אין דער רוסישער אימפּעריע בכּלל און אין פּױלן, װאָס איז דעמאָלט געװען אַ טײל פֿון דער אימפּעריע, בפֿרט. אַ דאַנק די צײַטונגען „האָבן די מאַסן גענומען לײענען, און זײ האָבן אָנגעהױבן צו לײענען אין זײער אײגענער שפּראַך“.
די ייִדישע פּרעסע איז געװאָרן אַ קולטורעלער שטח, װוּ די אינטעליגענציע האָט זיך געטראָפֿן מיט די מאַסן. די פּרעסע האָט אױך געשאַפֿן דעם עקאָנאָמישן יסוד פֿאַר דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור און דערלאָזט ייִדישע ליטעראַטן ציִען פּרנסה פֿון זײערע װערק. אָבער די ייִדישע פּרעסע איז ניט געװען סתּם אַ געשעפֿט. אַלע צײַטונגען האָבן זיך אַקטיװ באַטײליקט אין פּאָליטיק.
ערבֿ דער ערשטער װעלט־מלחמה האָט דער טיראַזש פֿון „הײַנט“, דער גרעסטער װאַרשעװער ייִדישער טאָגצײַטונג, דערגרײכט 100,000 עקזעמפּלאַרן, גלײַך מיט דער גרעסטער פּױלישער מאַסן־צײַטונג.
צװישן די, װאָס האָבן געשריבן פֿאַר „הײַנט“, זײַנען געװען די באַרימטסטע ייִדישע שרײַבער: יצחק לײבוש פּרץ, הערש דוד נאָמבערג, הילל צײטלין, דוד פֿרישמאַן, דער קריטיקער בעל־מחשבֿות און אַנדערע.
„הײַנט“ האָט געדרוקט שלום עליכמס ראָמאַנען „מנחם מענדלס בריװ“ און „דער בלוטיקער שפּאַס“, װי אױך שלום אַשעס „קידוש־השם“ און „פּעטערבורג“.
די רוסישע מאַכט האָט דעמאָלט דערשטיקט די פּױלישע שפּראַך און קולטור. דאָס האָט געשאַפֿן אַ שאַרפֿע פּאָליטישע פּראָבלעם פֿאַר ייִדן. אײניקע האָבן געשטיצט פּאָליאַקן אין זײער קאַמף פֿאַר אומאָפּהענגיקײט, אײניקע זײַנען געװען אױפֿן רוסישן צד, אָבער דאָס רובֿ ייִדן האָבן זיך געהאַלטן בײַ דער זײַט אינעם דאָזיקן שטרײַט פֿון צװײ סלאַװישע פֿעלקער.
נאַלעװאַיקאָ־קוליקאָװ דערמאָנט דעם לײענער אָן אַ װיכטיקן היסטאָרישן פֿאַקט: דאָס רובֿ צײַטונג־מענטשן אין װאַרשע זײַנען געװען ליטװאַקעס, װאָס זײַנען געקומען פֿון שטעט און שטעטלעך פֿון דער הײַנטיקער ליטע און בעלאַרוס. כאָטש מען דאַרף האָבן אין זינען, אַז אַ היפּשע צאָל װאַרשעװער ייִדן האָבן געהאַלטן פֿאַר „ליטװאַקעס“ אַלע ייִדן, װאָס האָבן גערעדט אױף ייִדיש אַנדערש פֿון זײ.
דװקא די ליטװאַקעס האָבן אַרײַנגעבראַכט קײן װאַרשע דעם באַגריף פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק װי אַ פּאָליטישע נאַציע. די מיגראַציע פֿון ליטװאַקעס קײן װאַרשע האָט גורם געװען אַ פֿײַנטשאַפֿט סײַ מצד אַסימילירטע פּױלישע ייִדן, װאָס האָבן זיך געהאַלטן פֿאַר „פּאָליאַקן פֿון משה רבינוס אמונה“, און סײַ מצד פּױלישע נאַציאָנאַליסטן.
סײַ די, סײַ יענע האָבן געהאַלטן די ליטװאַקעס פֿאַר „שליחים פֿון סאַנקט־פּעטערבורג“ — דאָס הײסט, שטיצער פֿון דער רוסיפֿיקאַציע־פּאָליטיק פֿון פּױלן. די דאָזיקע דעה איז ביזן הײַנטיקן טאָג פֿאַרבליבן בײַ אײניקע פּױלישע היסטאָריקער, באַמערקט נאַלעװאַיקאָ־קוליקאָװ.
זי שאַצט אָפּ דעם ליטװאַקישן בײַטראָג אינעם װאַרשעװער ייִדישן לעבן מער פּאָזיטיװ. זי מאָלט אַ לעבעדיק און רײַך בילד פֿון ייִדישער װאַרשע אין די לעצטע צענדליק יאָר פֿאַר דער ערשטער װעלט־מלחמה. דאָס דאָזיקע בילד שטעלט זיך צונױף פֿון שטיקלעך מיטצײַטלערישע אַרטיקלען און פֿון שפּעטערע זכרונות אױף ייִדיש, העברעיִש, פּױליש און רוסיש.
אױפֿן סמך פֿון אַרכיװאַלע דאָקומענטן אַנטפּלעקט נאַלעװאַיִקאָ־קוליקאָװ דעם פֿאַרפּלאָנטערטן ביוראָקראַטישן פּראָצעס פֿון קריגן פּובליקאַציע־דערלױבענישן בײַ די הױכע פֿענצטער פֿון דער רוסישער אַדמיניסטראַציע.
נאָך דער רעװאָלוציע פֿון 1905 איז דער פּאָליטישער קלימאַט אין דער רוסישער אימפּעריע געװאָרן מילדער, און אין 1906 זײַנען דערשינען פֿינעף נײַע צײַטונגען.
צװישן זײ איז געװען דאָס „ייִדישעס טאַגעבלאַט“. דער רעדאַקטאָר איז געװען שמואל־יעקב יאַצקאַן (1874־1936), אַ געוועזענער ישיבֿה־בחור װאָס האָט אָנגעהױבן זײַן זשורנאַליסטישע קאַריערע אין דער העברעיִשער פּרעסע. מען האָט געזאָגט אַז ער האָט גערעדט זיבן שפּראַכן, אַלע מיטן ליטװאַקישן אַקצענט.
יאַצקאַן איז געװאָרן דער ערשטער ייִדישער צײַטונגס־מענטש, װאָס האָט זיך געװענדט צו די ייִדישע מאַסן אױף זײער אײגענעם לשון. אין 1908 האָט ער אין אײנעם מיט אַנדערע מיטאַרבעטער פֿון „ייִדישעס טאַגעבלאַט“ געשאַפֿן „הײַנט“. דאָס איז געװען די ערשטע טאָגצײַטונג אױף ייִדיש אינעם מאָדערנעם פֿאָרמאַט מיט ספּעציעלע אָפּטײלן פֿאַר נײַעס, רעפּאָרטאַזשן, עדיטאָריאַלן, קאָמענטאַרן, אַנאָנסן און רעקלאַמע.
אָבער דער סאַמע פּאָפּולערער זשאַנער איז געװען דער „געשפּאַנטער“ ראָמאַן אין המשכים, װי למשל „אין נעץ פֿון זינד“. דער דאָזיקער ראָמאַן האָט שטאַרק געהעכערט דעם טיראַזש אָבער אַרױסגערופֿן שאַרפֿע קריטיק מצד ייִדישע אינטעליגענטן. זײ האָבן באַשולדיקט יאַצקאַן אין פֿאַרדאַרבן דעם געשמאַק פֿונעם ייִדישן מאַסן־לײענער.
אין אַלגעמײן איז נאַלעװײַקאָ־קוליקאָװס אָפּשאַצונג פֿון דער ראָלע פֿון „הײַנט“ פּאָזיטיװ: „עס איז מסתּמא ניט קײן גוזמא צו זאָגן, אַז אַ דאַנק ׳הײַנט׳ האָבן זיך ייִדישע לײענער פּלוצעם אױפֿגעװעקט אינעם צװאַנציקסטן יאָרהונדערט און אַנטדעקט, אַז זײ באַלאַנגען צו דער גרױסער װעלט און ניט בלױז צו זײער שטעטל אָדער קװאַרטאַל“.
אין גיכן האָט „הײַנט“ באַקומען אַ שטאַרקן קאָנקורענט. אין 1910 האָט צבֿי פּרילוצקי געשאַפֿן דעם „מאָמענט“. דאָס איז געװען אַ מער „בירגערלעכע“ צײַטונג, װאָס האָט אױסגעמיטן דעם סענסאַציאָנעלן סטיל און ניט געדרוקט קײן „שונד“־ראָמאַנען.
ניט אַלע ייִדישע צײַטונגען האָבן איבערגעלעבט די שװערע מלחמה־יאָרן צװישן 1914 און 1918. אין 1915 איז װאַרשע געפֿאַלן אונטער דער דײַטשישער אָקופּאַציע און ייִדן האָבן געמוזט זיך צופּאַסן צו די נײַע בעלי־בתּים. אָבער „הײַנט“ און „דער מאָמענט“ זײַנען פֿאַרבליבן די װיכטיקסטע טאָג־צוטײַנגען ביז די סאַמע לעצטע טעג פֿון דער פּױלישער רעפּובליק. זײערע לעצטע נומערן זײַנען אַרױס װען היטלערס חיילות זײַנען אַרײַן אין װאַרשע, אין די לעצטע טעג פֿון סעפּטעמבער 1939.
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