From 1880 to 1914, hundreds of thousands of Eastern Jews migrated to Western Europe. A large proportion of this mass migration was in reaction to the
Pogroms of 1881. This geographical change resulted in tension between Western and Eastern Jewish identities, as there was not a single national identity held by both despite a shared religious history. Eastern Jews faced widespread xenophobia in Germany from Western Jews. Western Jews used the derogatory term
Ostjuden to refer to Eastern Jews, which stereotyped Eastern Jews as primitive and poor compared to wealthier, more educated Western Jews. Leo Winz and David Trietsch founded
Ost und West in 1901 in Berlin, Germany. Winz was a
Ukrainian Jew and Trietsch was a
German Jew. Aligned with
Martin Buber's view of Judaism as a national culture, their goal was to establish a pan-Jewish ethnicity and combat Ostjuden stereotypes. It featured many etching works by
Ephraim Moshe Lelain in the
art nouveau style. Additionally, David A. Brenner, author of ''German-Jewish Popular Culture before the Holocaust: Kafka's kitsch'', wrote that the magazine is an "ideal" source for evaluating the reception to
Yiddish theatre in Germany especially since "studies of popular Berlin theater, including Yiddish-language theater, are few and far between". Published authors of the magazine included:
Martin Buber,
Georg Hermann,
Theodor Herzl,
Bertha von Suttner,
Nathan Birnbaum,
Lothar Brieger,
Hermann Cohen,
Max Eschelbacher,
Ludwig Geiger,
Achad Haam,
Gustav Karpeles,
Samuel Lublinski,
Max Nordau,
Alfred Nossig,
Max Osborn,
Felix Perles,
Martin Philippson,
Binjamin Segel,
Arthur Silbergleit,
Thekla Skorra,
Werner Sombart,
Eugen Wolbe,
August Wünsche and
Theodor Zlocisti. Winz remained in the role of chief editor of the magazine until its demise. He lived in Palestine from 1923-1925, and then emigrated permanently in 1935. The magazine ceased in 1923 when massive
inflation took its toll. It is considered a success, having reached ten percent of the Jewish population in Germany. ==References==