On Commentaries and Observations

This article is dedicated in honor of Moses I. Feuerstein, The Commentator's first and greatest editor-in-chief.  As I pray for his lasting health, I am forever grateful he lent me his newspaper for a short while.

Though The Commentator is the first and longest running Yeshiva student-run newspaper, its origins lie sometime before its first issue was published March 4, 1935.  In fact, astonishing as it may be, its beginnings lie in the ambitions of longtime Yeshiva College professor, Eli Levine, and another YU student publication, Hedenu. 

Eli Levine was one of the more motivated members of Yeshiva College's first graduate class of 20 students in 1932, during the College’s infant years.  Though a chemistry major, Levine was very involved in several literary publications during the earliest years of the College.  In his graduation year, Levine served on the literary staff of the ninth volume of Hedenu and was an associate editor of the fourth Masmid, YC's long-lasting annual yearbook.

Of these two obligations, the one that absorbed the lion's share of extra-curricular hours was Hedenu.

Through nearly two decades of publication, RIETS' Hedenu was a modest publication that ran at inconsistent intervals and included a hodgepodge of Hebrew and English Torah related articles as well as book reviews, editorials and news briefs.  Among their notable news stories, in 1928, Hedenu wrote on the twice-weekly shiurim delivered by Rabbi Shimon Shkop.  A 1929 edition of the journal devoted space to the development of the Student Organization of Yeshiva, RIETS' official student council. (In those days, undergraduate students in the Yeshiva Program were officially part of RIETS.)  More dedicated to providing Yeshiva news than ever before, in Levine's 1932 edition, Hedenu reported on several happenings including the appointment of Rabbi Joseph Lookstein to the homiletics staff of the Yeshiva.

As for his work in Masmid, aside from an insightful analysis on the Book of Job, Levine penned an editorial using Nietzscheism to arouse activism among his fellow students.  "Men of Yeshiva College," he concluded in his essay, "as you go out into life, catch for a moment the fiery spirit of our ancient prophets ... get out of your passive indifferent states, remember the far reaching Jewish principle – United of G-d, Unity of Mankind!"    

However, while Levine remained a staple personality at Yeshiva by becoming an assist in YC's small chemistry department a year after his graduation (he stayed in the department and eventually became its chairman until he retired in 1976), Hedenu was not to remain the same.  During 1933, Hedenu struggled for a mission statement and, in fact, for its very publication. Hedenu's 1934 editorial board tried to reclaim its identity through a bold editorial.  Entitled, "Hedenu - A New Policy," the editorial declared: "It is our belief that now, for the first time, Hedenu sees the light of the day in its true garb, no longer clad in the unbecoming clothes of a student gossip paper given to petty quibbles and foolish dilly-dallyings."  All news content would be stripped from Hedenu's pages.  In its place, the editorial board filled pages of that 1934 issue with reprints of articles from Albert Einstein and recent immigrant to Boston, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

So proud was Hedenu's staff of its new presentation that in its next issue, it ran a letter from Rabbi Israel H. Weisenfeld of Chicago extending his "sincerest compliments on the excellence of Hedenu.  The fall issue was a total and most happy revelation and is infinitely superior to some old Hedenus."  Another letter from Rabbi Moses Mescheloff of Scranton, PA, a former Hedenu editor, proudly admitted in writing that the current style was "far superior to our earlier attempts."

While Hedenu's policy eventually paved the way for SOY's much more permanent publication, Beit Yitzhak, lack of leadership forced the publication to eventually fizzle out after a final volume dedicated to Yeshiva President Bernard Revel's fiftieth birthday in 1936.  Moreover, though the above editorial claimed to represent the views of the entire Hedenu staff, the new ideological direction taken by Hedenu could not have sat well with those like Eli Levine or Hedenu's sophomore business manager, Moses I. Feuerstein.  Both men saw a need for a news publication at Yeshiva.