Fit to Print

During these weeks, this column is marking a decade in print. For me, passing this mark certainly triggers various memories and reflections, and some serious contemplation as well, about my personal role, and about frum media in general.

In the early 1900s, as Rav Eliezer Gordon, the rav of Telz, surveyed the communal landscape of Eastern Europe, he was deeply concerned by the spiritual damage being done by secular Jewish publications. Newspapers run by maskilim were rife with features and opinion columns that were influencing their readers to turn away from Torah beliefs and values.

Rav Leizer decided it was necessary to launch a competing newspaper that would advance the Torah worldview and take on those who in their writings sought to besmirch and distort it. Realizing such an undertaking would require a significant financial investment, he traveled to Minsk to meet with a number of wealthy balabatim there. He knew them to be insightful people, who were also descendants of the Vilna Gaon and Rabi Akiva Eiger, and he was hopeful of getting a receptive hearing for his idea.

Upon meeting with Rav Gordon, they agreed to throw their support behind a new publication, conditional on receiving the backing of Rav Chaim Soloveitchik for the project. They told Rav Gordon that Reb Chaim was about to marry off his son in a town near Minsk, and instead of making the journey to Brisk, he could attend the chasunah and speak with Reb Chaim there.