“Members under 100 Years of Age Not Admitted” reads the caption under a 1920s photo of the century club at the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Dorchester, Mass. The photo was published in the Forward (Jewish Daily Forward, or Forverts), the subject of a celebratory exhibition open now at the Museum of the City of New York and marking the newspaper’s 110th anniversary. It’s but one of many engaging photographs that testify to the seminal role played by the newspaper in the lives of several generations of American — and Americanizing — Jews. Coinciding with the exhibition is “A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish life from the pages of the Forward” (W.W. Norton, 352 pages, $39.95), a new book edited by the paper’s arts and culture editor, Alana Newhouse.

The newspaper was more than simply an ongoing visual record. Founded by Abraham Cahan (1860–1951), a noted Yiddish novelist and essayist, the Jewish Daily Forward became a means of creating a sense of community among the 2 million Yiddish-speaking Jews who came to America in the late 19th and early 20th century. Though they eventually permeated the fabric of American life across the entire country, the majority of this influx settled in New York. At the start of World War I, they constituted more than onequarter of New Yorkers. As any subway regular knows, the domestic foreign language press is a critical means assuring that immigrants and foreign-born workers keep up with the news.

The Forward served as much more than a news source for its readers. The Bintel Brief (“bundle of letters”), which served as an all-purpose advice column for more than 80 years, managed in print to combine Craigslist, JDate, and “Dear Abby,” and a range of other services. It was Cahan’s genius that sensed this generation of immigrants, separated from family and friends, often in serious financial trouble or dealing with horrific social and domestic problems, could find solace and practical assistance from his newspaper.

The paper’s readers were working-class people in the heyday of the worker’s movement. And because the Forward’s readers ranged from assertively secular socialists and Yiddishists to Orthodox Jews, their newspaper needed to reflect the varieties of communal organizations they organized, as well as the apparently endless array of events they sponsored — connecting them to the past they had left behind, while assisting them with their ongoing Americanization.

It was natural that they tended to be organized around common origins (as in the Landsmanschaft, people from the same community) or shared politics (as with various labor organizations and segmented party politics). But what’s even more impressive about the hold that this newspaper had on its readers is how the generations that followed retained a nostalgia for the impact that the Forward had on their ancestors’ lives.

That commitment to a newspaper as a cultural icon is rare, as we have seen over the years through the demise of so many newspapers, and the resulting reduction of variety in news coverage, editorial points of view, and feature writing. If it was and is nostalgia that preserved this newspaper, it’s also redefinition that has kept it alive. In 1990, a re-imagined weekly Forward in English came into being, edited for its first 10 years by the editor who is now conducting The New York Sun, Seth Lipsky.

The MCNY show is accompanied by texts and photos and historical artifacts, and as such should be of interest to all New Yorkers — even those for whom the Forward is not a sacred institution. After all, the community served by this newspaper has left its most indelible mark on this city, even while the readership ranged far beyond New York. The impressive new book of photographs is a must for nostalgia buffs. A centennial-plus-ten is no mean trick in this disposable age, especially for a newspaper, and celebrating such an achievement warrants a comprehensive look at one of the most influential means by which yesterday’s American Jewish community turned into the Jews of today’s America.

Until September 27 (1220 Fifth Ave. at 103rd Street, 212-534-1672).