Germinal (journal)

Germinal (זשערמינאל, also transliterated as Zsherminal) was a Yiddish-language anarchist journal in London edited by the German-born Rudolf Rocker.

In 1898, the Yiddish anarchist newspaper Arbeter Fraynd hired Rudolf Rocker, a non-Jew, who had just started learning the language, as its editor.

However, despite an intervention by Emma Goldman and the devotion of many activists trying to save the paper, it had to be shut down for financial reasons in January 1900.

Compared to Arbeter Fraynd, it was directed at a more intellectual audience and dealt with philosophy and literature using libertarian concepts to analyse them.

The Jewish anarchist labour movement in London was on the rise, so the journal was able to reach a demand of 2,500 by the following year, when it was expanded to 48 pages.