Now celebrating its 110th year, the Forward is a legendary name in American journalism and a revered institution in American Jewish life. Launched as a Yiddish-language daily newspaper on April 22, 1897, the Forward entered the din of New York’s immigrant press as a defender of trade unionism and moderate, democratic socialism. Under the leadership of its founding editor, the crustily independent Abraham Cahan, the Forward became known as the voice of the Jewish immigrant and the conscience of the ghetto. It fought for social justice; helped generations of immigrants assimilate to American life, broke some of the most significant news stories of the century, and was among the nation’s most eloquent defenders of democracy and Jewish rights.

By the early 1930s, the Forward had become one of America’s premier metropolitan dailies, with a nationwide circulation topping 275,000 and influence that reached around the world and into the Oval Office. At one time or another, the newspaper’s editorial staff included nearly every major luminary in the then-thriving world of Yiddish literature, including future Nobel laureates Isaac Bashevis Singer and Elie Wiesel.

In 1990, the Forward Association made the bold decision to launch the English-language Forward as an independent, high-profile weekly newspaper committed to covering the Jewish world with the same crusading spirit as Cahan’s Jewish Daily Forward. The new Forward quickly established itself as a fearless and indispensable source of news and opinion on Jewish affairs. Its cultural pages have featured such writers as Cynthia Ozick and Phillip Lopate, while the FastForward section has become a leading window into the lifestyles of young Jews of Generation X and beyond.

The Forward has continued its commitment to incisive, hard-hitting reportage while at the same time returning to the populist, progressive spirit that was the Forward’s hallmark in its early years. Recently, the paper has reached its largest-ever English-language circulation, while firmly cementing its reputation as American Jewry’s essential newspaper of record. Today’s Forward has once again become what its parent publication was nearly a century ago: a trusted guide to the varieties of the American Jewish experience.