Abraham "Abe" Cahan (

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

: אַבֿרהם קאַהאַן; July 7, 1860 – August 31, 1951) was a Lithuanian-born American

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

newspaper editor, novelist, and politician. Cahan was one of the founders of ''

The Forward ''The Forward'' (), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ''The New York Times'' reported that Set ...

'' (), an American

publication, and was its

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

for 43 years. During his stewardship of the ''Forward,'' it became a prominent voice in the Jewish community and in the

Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America ...

, voicing a relatively

moderate Moderate is an ideological category which entails centrist views on a liberal-conservative spectrum. It may also designate a rejection of radical or extreme views, especially in regard to politics and religion. Political position Canad ...

stance within the realm of American socialist politics.

Early life and childhood

Abraham Cahan was born July 7, 1860, in Paberžė in

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

(at the time in Vilnius Governorate,

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

), into an Orthodox, Litvak family. His grandfather was a

rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...

in Vidz,

Vitebsk Vitebsk or Vitsyebsk (, ; , ; ) is a city in northern Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Vitebsk Region and Vitebsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it has 358,927 inhabitants, m ...

, his father a teacher of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

and the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

. The devoutly religious family moved to

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

in 1866, where the young Cahan studied to become a rabbi. He, however, was attracted by secular knowledge and clandestinely studied

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

, ultimately demanding that his parents allow him to enter the Teachers Institute of Vilnius from which he graduated in 1881. He was appointed as a teacher in a Jewish school funded by the Russian government in

Velizh Velizh () is a town and the administrative center of Velizhsky District in Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the bank of the Western Dvina, from Smolensk, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: History In the late 14th cen ...

, Vitebsk, in the same year.

Immigration to the United States

In Czarist Russia, repression from both the government and the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

restricted the travel, settlement, and educational opportunities of Jewish subjects, who were subject to discrimination and brutality. By 1879, when Cahan was still a teenager, he had associated himself with the growing radical revolutionary movement in Russia.Marovitz, ''Abraham Cahan,'' pp. xvii-xix. After the Emperor

Alexander II of Russia Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, Congress Poland, King of Poland and Grand Du ...

was assassinated by a member of the

Narodnaya Volya Narodnaya Volya () was a late 19th-century revolutionary socialist political organization operating in the Russian Empire, which conducted assassinations of government officials in an attempt to overthrow the autocratic Tsarist system. The org ...

in March 1881, all revolutionary sympathizers became suspect to the Russian police. In 1882 the Russian police searched Cahan’s room for radical publications that could be linked to the revolutionaries. The visit from the police prompted the young socialist schoolteacher to join the great emigration of Russian Jews to the United States. Cahan arrived by steamboat in Philadelphia on June 6 of 1882 at the age of 21 and immediately traveled to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, where he would live for the rest of his life.

Career

In July 1882, barely a month after arriving in the United States, Cahan attended his first American socialist meeting, and a month later he gave his first socialist speech, speaking in Yiddish. Although he found American society to be a vast improvement over life in Russia, he began to express certain criticisms of American conditions from a

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

perspective. Cahan quickly mastered English. In addition to writing for various publications, by 1883 he dedicated much of his time to teaching English to

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

Jewish immigrants. He taught at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association ('' YMHA'') and often incorporated socialist speeches into his lesson plans. He also briefly taught in the English Department at the Orthodox Etz Chaim Yeshiva. Cahan formally joined the

Socialist Labor Party of America The Socialist Labor Party (SLP)"The name of this organization shall be Socialist Labor Party". Art. I, Sec. 1 of thadopted at the Eleventh National Convention (New York, July 1904; amended at the National Conventions 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 192 ...

in 1887. Cahan’s education in Russian and English and his literary and journalistic abilities allowed him to excel as a socialist, and toward the end of his career he was considered a leading figure of the radical Jewish left. In keeping with his socialist politics, Cahan believed that immigrants needed to combine formal learning with informal studies about local life and community customs to achieve not only an education but also integration into American society.Gerald Sorin, The Prophetic Minority: American Jewish Immigrant Radicals, 1880-1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985; pg. 74.Mark Pittenger, ''American Socialists and Evolutionary Thought, 1870-1920.'' Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993; pg. 105. He also encouraged women to use labor and education to elevate their status in society.Wade, Jewish American Literature, 32.

''The Jewish Daily Forward''

Soon after arriving in America Cahan wrote articles on socialism and science, and translated literary works for the pages of the Yiddish language newspaper of the

Socialist Labor Party The Socialist Labor Party (SLP)"The name of this organization shall be Socialist Labor Party". Art. I, Sec. 1 of thadopted at the Eleventh National Convention (New York, July 1904; amended at the National Conventions 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 192 ...

, the ''Arbeiter Zeitung'' () Cahan edited the ''Arbeiter Zeitung'' from 1891 to 1895, and followed that position with an editorship at the paper ''Di Tsukunft'' () through 1887. Afterward, Cahan was made a full-time reporter for the '' New York Commercial Advertiser,'' and it was this position as an apprentice of reporter

Lincoln Steffens Joseph Lincoln Steffens (April 6, 1866 – August 9, 1936) was an American investigative journalist and one of the leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. He launched a series of articles in '' McClure's'', called " ...

that prepared Cahan for his coming role as a founding editor of the Jewish Daily Forward. Cahan founded the ''Forward'' while he was still juggling several newspaper jobs and published its first issue in 1897.Manor, ''Forward,'' pg. 38. The horror of the

Kishinev pogrom The Kishinev pogrom or Kishinev massacre was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev (modern Chișinău, Moldova), then the capital of the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire, on . During the pogrom, which began on Easter Day, ...

, which the ''Forward'' covered extensively, prompted Cahan to take on leadership of the ''Forward'' full-time in 1903, taking over total editorial control and running the newspaper full-time until 1946. In his years working at the ''Forward,'' Cahan transformed the self-identified socialist newspaper from an obscure paper with only 6000 readers to the forefront of Yiddish journalism. The ''Jewish Daily Forward'' became a symbol of American socialism and Jewish immigration, and assumed the role of an Americanizing agent instructing its readers in the social, economic, political, and cultural aspects of the United States. Cahan received criticism from fellow Jewish journalists because he didn’t limit the Forward to Jewish topics, but wrote on a variety of themes and was one of the more temperate voices in the

, respecting his readers' religious beliefs and preaching an increasingly moderate and

reformist Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution. Within the socialist movement, ref ...

form of socialist politics as time progressed.

Fiction writing

Cahan distinguished himself through not only Yiddish literature but also his English

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

that dealt with the

sociological Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociology was coined in ...

and

historical History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

process of immigrants becoming Americans. By 1896, Cahan had published his first short story, “A Providential Match”, and just a year later he published his first novel, '' Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto'' (later filmed as '' Hester Street''). By 1901, Cahan had published six of his stories in a variety of popular magazines. Cahan’s most popular novel was '' The Rise of David Levinsky'', a semi-autobiographical account that mirrored Cahan’s own experiences of immigration, describing a Jewish immigrant's process of Americanization and showcasing the Jewish-socialist cultural establishments in New York.

Death and legacy

Cahan died of congestive heart failure on August 31, 1951, at the age of 91, in Beth Israel Hospital in New York City. He was buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens, New York. Cahan’s education of immigrants, his work through the Jewish Daily Forward, and his commitment to socialism influenced the Jewish immigrants in New York who came into contact with his work. In addition to influencing American Jewish culture, his works were published in Russia, leaving a mark on the

Russian Jew The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest po ...

ish workers' movement.

Works

*
A Dream No Longer,"
''New York Call,'' vol. 11, no. 129 (May 31, 1918), pg. 6. * The Rise of David Levinsky. Harper Torch Books (1917; 1945; 1960) * "The Education of Abraham Cahan." Translation of ''Bleter Fun Mein Leben, Volumes I and II'' by Leon Stein, Abraham Conan, and Lynn Davison. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1969. * "Bleter Fun Mein Leben" *'' The Imported Bridegroom, and Other Stories of the New York Ghetto'', 1898, Boston, New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company. * '' Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto''. New York D. Appleton and Company 1896.

Footnotes

External links

* *
Literary Encyclopedia
(in-progress) *
Papers of Abraham Cahan.
RG 1139; YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, NY.
"Historye fun di fereynigte shtatn"

Video: Abe Cahan Rejected Offer to Have my Great-Great-Uncle Shmuel Niger Write for the Forverts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cahan, Abraham 1860 births 1951 deaths 19th-century American Jews 19th-century American male writers 19th-century American memoirists 19th-century American novelists 19th-century American short story writers 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American memoirists 20th-century American novelists American male non-fiction writers American male novelists American male short story writers American Marxists American newspaper editors American newspaper founders American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent American political writers Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Exophonic writers Jewish advice columnists Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish American novelists Jewish American short story writers Jewish socialists Jews from the Russian Empire Lithuanian Jews Members of the Socialist Labor Party of America Members of the Socialist Party of America Socialist Party of America politicians from New York (state) People from Smarhon district People from Vilna Governorate Trade unionists from New York (state) Yiddish-language journalists