#125 - The Hungarian TV Megastar Who Bought a 100 Year Old Jewish Newspaper

Just a couple of weeks ago we commemorated the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the entire western world mourned for the 6 million souls that perished. But what is often missed is the fact, that the Nazis didn’t only murder the people, they murdered whole parts of the Jewish culture that thrived in Europe for many centuries. They destroyed hundreds of newspapers and obliterated whole libraries. They murdered a language, Yiddish. And indeed, before World War II, Jewish culture in Europe was extremely vibrant, with an endless stream of theater, books and newspapers. Literally hundreds of newspapers were published throughout Europe and America, in Yiddish, Hebrew and the local languages. The people of the book were obviously obsessed with ink and paper, and it showed. Most of these publishings didn’t make it through the war, but some survived. One of those was Új Kelet, a Hungarian-Romanian newspaper founded 100 years ago. The history of this paper is a long one, but the interesting part is how the paper nearly went bankrupt a few years back. Right when Kristof Steiner entered the story. Kristof is a Hungarian, part-Jewish model and TV celebrity. He’s been living in Israel for the past ten years and when he heard about the state of Új Kelet, he decided he simply couldn’t let the paper die. What happened next is absolutely incredible. We’re proud to have Kristof Steiner here on the podcast to tell the story.