IJN takes home six Rockower Awards for excellence in Jewish journalism

The Intermountain Jewish News staff won six Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism at the annual conference of the American Jewish Press Association, June 14-16, in Phoenix.

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, IJN executive editor, represented the IJN at the conference, which examines best practices in the industry and the interaction of electronic and print media.

The immigration crisis in Arizona was also addressed.

The highlight of the conference is the annual banquet, at which the awards are presented.

The awards are based on a blind evaluation by a juried panel of professional journalists and of professors of journalism.

The IJN winners were:

First place, feature writing, by Chris Leppek, IJN assistant editor, for “Crypto Jews,” a report in the Education and Culture special section, Aug. 14, 2009, on the 19th annual meeting of the Society of Crypto-Judaic Studies, held in Denver.

First place, personality profiles, by Tehilla R. Goldberg, IJN columnist, for “Hillel of UN Watch,” May 1, 2009, on Hillel Neuer, an idealistic, former corporate lawyer who became a leading watchdog in Geneva for Israeli and human rights at the UN.

First place, overall graphic design, by Hillel Goldberg.

First place, personal essay, by Hillel Goldberg, for “The Archaeology of Our Lives,” in the IJN Rosh Hashanah edition, Sept. 18, 2009, on the  ways people forget their own passionate commitments over time, yet these passions are judged as permanent parts of people’s lives.

Second place, personality profiles, by Chris Leppek, for “Worldwide Maggid: Bringing Back an Old Tradition,” in the Kosher Living special  section, March 20, 2009, on Rabbi Paysach Krohn, the bestselling author of books on Jewish stories.

Second, place, commentary, by Hillel Goldberg, for his View from Denver weekly column, specifically, “NPR defends itself,” “Werner and Lucie waited seven years,” and “Unanticipated responses to Orthodox-Reform fissures.”

Judges of the 2010 Rockower Awards were:

John C. Abel, Wired.com’s New York City bureau chief;

Manya Brachear, religion reporter of the Chicago Tribune;

Chris Carroll, a Baltimore-based science writer of National Geographic;

Rob Csillag, the Toronto correspondent for Religion News Service in Washington, DC;

Paul Delaney, a former reporter and editor with The New York Times;

Alan Eisner, a senior editor for Reuters;

John Greenwald, former reporter, columnist, section editor and top editor, now a painter and freelance writer;

Damien Jacques, theater critic for the Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from 1980-2009;

Jason Kaczorowski, an award-winning professional portrait and event photographer;

Deborah Kalb, freelance writer and editor in Washington, DC;

Joel Kaplan, associate dean for professional graduate studies at the Newhouse School of Public Communication, Syracuse University;

Joanne Kenen, a senor writer in the health policy program at the New American Foundation and editor of the New Health Dialogue blog;

Daniel Kohan, found of Sensical Design & Communication, a graphic design firm and for 10 years, art director and designer at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine;

Arthur Kurzweil, Judaica consultant for Jossey-Bass/Wiley;

Leon Lawrence, III, the design director of USA Weekend magazine;

Todd Leopold, the entertainment section producer of CNN.com;

Jimmy Margulies, nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist for The Record in New Jersey;

Laura Meckler, staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal;

Glenn Oeland, a features editor for National Geographic;

Polina Pinchevsky, principal of Nana Design;

Cathy Richman, former director of design and production at the New Jersey Jewish News;

Amy E. Schwartz, editorial writer and op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, 1985-2002;

Stan Schwartz, senior editor for the  National Newspaper Assn.;

Casey Shaw, creative director for USA Weekend Magazine;

Mark Silk, former instructor at Harvard and reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and founding editor of Religion in theNews;

Linda Topping Streitfeld, director of programs for the National Press Foundation; and

Daine Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion in the Annenberg School for Communicating of the University of Southern California.