Ha-Tsfira
Hebrew language newspaper
Ha-Tsfira (Hebrew: הצפירה) was a Hebrew-language newspaper published in Poland in 1862 and 1874–1931.
History
The first issue of Ha-Tsfira appeared in Warsaw, Congress Poland, in 1862, edited by Chaim Selig Slonimski. Ha-Tsfira was the first Hebrew paper with an emphasis on the sciences.
The paper closed down after six months when Slonimski became principal of the rabbinical seminary in Zhytomyr, and the government began censorship of Hebrew books.
It reopened in 1874 in Berlin, and began to be published in Warsaw in September 1875. Coverage of news and politics was introduced after the First Zionist Congress. From 1886, the paper began to appear as a daily. The driving spirit behind this change was Slonimski's assistant, Nachum Sokolov, who was later appointed editor-in-chief.
Ha-Tsfira became part of a network of important Hebrew periodicals, among them Ha-Shahar, Ha-Asif, Ha-Shiloaḥ. Some of the greatest names in early modern Hebrew literature published their work in the paper, including Mendele Mocher Sforim, Y. L. Peretz, and Sholem Aleichem.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ha-Tsfira” is hebrew language newspaper. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ha-Tsfira, Hebrew and language, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “hebrew language newspaper” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2906544. VIAF identifies the subject as 183814909. The Library of Congress control number is nr2001016404. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1862, 1874, 1931 and 1875.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ha-Tsfira” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.