Peter Wiernik: Scholar, Historian, and Editor

The New Palestine, December 18, 1925.

“Peter Wiernik, editor and historian, celebrates his 60th anniversary.” This short notice slipped through the columns of the American Jewish press this week.

With the modesty characteristic of scholars, the fact of this holiday was withheld from the public large. The occasion was celebrated by only a small group of friends and those initiated – the Yodei Chein.

It is not surprising that this celebration was limited to a charmed circle. A peculiar charm of reserve, the result of profound knowledge, has always accompanied the life and work of Peter Wiernik.

The birth of the Yiddish press in this country was simultaneous with the birth of the Jewish labor movement and the school of radical thought under which it developed. This fact resulted in the impression prevalent in certain influential quarters even today, that the Jewish press in this country is devoted mainly to the advocating of more or less radical doctrines. Jews as a rule are considered, if not precisely sponsors of radical ideas, at least sponsors of liberalism. Due to these developments conservative Jewish thought unfolded with greater strength and found expression in the publication of a conservative Jewish press. In this press, the Jewish Morning Journal played a leading role.

The moving force of thoughtful conservatism, a combination of modern knowledge coupled with the wisdom of ancient sources, was and is Peter Wiernik. Readers of the Jewish press, when looking for the specifically Jewish view of any event which happens to occupy the minds of men, look to the editorial comments of Peter Wiernik. His pen finds interest not only in matters of purely religious or Jewish national character; his pen is devoted to matters pertaining to politics, social reform and science. Any complicated situation in any country finds his mind attentive. His comments, while based on the latest information, always possess a Jewish “punch,” which can be explained only by his being steeped in Jewish philosophic thought and in traditional Jewish expression.

Peter Wiernik thinks in terms of tradition. Nothing that has any material, moral or aesthetic value can spring from a vacuum; all matter has a beginning and an origin; its duty lies in its continuity. The new must have its roots in the ancient. For these reasons history is not only Wiernik’s hobby but, one might say, his viewpoint.

Peter Wiernik represents an entirely new type in Jewish literature and journalism. Although born in the midst of the heated fight that went on in the middle of the 19th century between the two dominant tendencies in Jewish life, the “Haskalah” and “Hassidism,” he was never caught in the whirlwind of this conflict. In fact, the course of his life marks a distinct departure from the then-prevailing routine.

He did not spend his youth in study alone; he did not fight the “darkness,” did not cherish high ambitions to save the world from its ancient troubles. He simply settled down to work from his early youth.

The son of a traveling Maggid, having the privilege of seeing his father only at rare intervals – perhaps only once a year – he did not have to resist paternal education and go through the usual conflict between “fathers and sons.” He was also spared the luxury of indulging in theorizing on account of too great material abundance. Harnessed to hard work, at the age of 13, in Riga, he found, unlike all his contemporaries, great relief in the joyful and enthusiastic attitude of the Hassidim on Saturdays and holidays.

Though not a Socialist, Peter Wiernik, on his arrival in America, plunged into the field of productive labor immediately; he worked as a compositor for many years in various newspaper plants. However, the work in the composing room did not keep him from studying and from taking an interest in the intellectual problems of life.

Setting up the articles of others, in the course of many years he grew and developed into one of America’s most prominent and widely educated Jewish editors. Before his eyes the great wave of Jewish immigration from Slavic countries unfolded in the new environment. Observing it closely and dispassionately, he was, logically, destined to become the historian of this important, many-sided and restless period in the life of American Jews. His History of the Jews in America, the only one of its kind so far, is naturally, in its greater part, devoted to the history of the recent past. It contains an invaluable amount of information and documents embracing the Jewish history of America which could be preserved only by a man of Wiernik’s intellect and serene attitude towards the problem. Despite his personal bias toward tradition, he devoted his attention not only to the moving chapter of what may be termed “Congregational development” in the life of the first Jewish immigrants from Slavic countries, but also to the numberless attempts to organize the Jewish labor union movement, that movement which was rightly characterized as the “constantly changing army under unchanging leaders.”

There is something strengthening and refreshing in the views which form the background of the work which Mr. Wiernik has performed. They can be formulated as follows.

The basis of development of all races and peoples is, as no one can deny, the economic motive. No advancement of any race or of any people would be accomplished were not the natural needs of the individuals and their collective effort as a group striving towards expansion and conquest. This is true of all races and of all peoples. It is equally true of our people. To put the purpose of mankind in a nutshell, one might call it an elemental longing for the salvation of the world. It is the slow process of development, the first step of which was necessarily the establishing of a reign of justice of one individual towards the other, and one group of individuals, call them peoples or nations, towards another. In this respect our people has made the greatest of all contributions. This tendency made itself evident from the period of the Prophets and till the latest attempts to solve social problems. There are principally two tendencies in history. The one described above, represented by us; the other represented by those who oppose it. When the struggle for the dominance of one of these tendencies is to be ended there is no way of knowing. All we can do is record the things that have already occurred.

Parallel with the advance of this tendency for justice and equality, aiming at the salvation of the world, the fight for the emancipation of the Jewish people has been going on. It was not until the French Revolution and the German Revolution of 1848 that the Jews were, in principle, given equal rights. The existence of the American Jewish community in its present form and numbers is the first fact of this kind which was ever recorded in the history of the Jewish people and the history of the world. America represents a unique experiment in this respect. For the first time a great number of Jews are incorporated into the body of a great and free nation under the protection of a democratic and liberal government and given the possibility of enjoying full citizenship rights and religious liberty. This state of affairs certainly has its advantages but it also has its dangers. Here again Jewish history can furnish us with a good reason for optimism. It was not earlier than the date when the Jewish settlements began to grow and the development of the Slavic countries that the type of Jew that we are now accustomed to look upon as the only representative of traditional Judaism, characterizing his as Orthodox Jew, began to make his appearance. We are always inclined to think of this type of Jew as one whose Jewishness is expressed by his differences in language, dress and external custom from the other inhabitants of the land. But let us take a lesson from history. The Jewish community in Arabic Spain was highly cultured, highly developed and certainly highly Jewish since it could produce such a basically Jewish literature as the one which inspired our historians to name that period “The Golden Epoch.” Nevertheless, a leader and intellectual genius like Maimonides was not different from his countrymen in his language, external custom and culture. The essentials of Judaism do not depend upon such external appearances. There is no ground for pessimism in the prediction of the approach of a similar type of American Jew who, enjoying to the full measure his political rights, cultural and economic opportunities, will remain true to his specific Jewish culture, line of thought and religion. The time is not far off when America, the youngest of Jewish communities, will be in a position to supply with intellectual and religious leaders all the other older and now seemingly decadent Jewish communities of the world. In this respect, Orthodox Judaism is a valuable protection and a veritable armor, as has been proven in the course of our long and varied historical development.

Jewish life is safe in America.

The fate of the Jewish communities in the Anglo-Saxon countries which we can rightly call biblical countries, is sufficient proof that anti-Semitism, at least so far as its sharp and violent forms are concerned, never can root itself very deeply in these countries.

These, briefly summarized, are the dominant features of Peter Wiernik’s philosophy. These are the views which shaped his policy and made him one of the leading figures in contemporary Jewish journalism and Jewish thought.