Friday, March 29, 2024 -
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Seen and heard at the GA, AJPA

At the annual meeting of the American Jewish Press Association, Jewish media gather to share successes, exchange ideas and confront challenges. This year, the meeting took place in conjunction with Jewish Federation of North America’s General Assembly in Washington, DC.

IJN Assistant Publisher Shana Goldberg caught the tail end of the GA and the AJPA meeting in full.

Heard at the GA: JEWISHcolorado’s Ashleigh Miller and Seth Wong named as exemplars of young leadership by JFNA board chair Michael Siegel at the closing plenary.

Seen at the GA: Susan Kramer and Ariella Milobsky of Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project’s Denver office. Kramer shared that the organization will bring over 3,000 women to Israel in 2016.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reassured a crowd of 3,000 Jewish professionals that America and Israel share a strong unbreakable bond. A standing ovation came when he said, “The only way to find lies is to speak the truth. We have nothing to be ashamed of. We have everything to be proud of.”

Missed at the GA: Doug Seserman, CEO and president of JEWISHcolorado, despite efforts from both sides for a meet-up.

News from the AJPA and Jewish media: Rick Kestenbaum of New Jersey Jewish News is incoming president of the association. He takes over from the hard working and always collegial Marshall Weiss of the Dayton Jewish Observer.

Lisa Hostein, formerly of JTA and the Jewish Exponent (Philadelphia) will be executive editor at the award-winning Hadassah Magazine.

Seen at the association’s annual Simon Rockower Awards banquet, honoring excellence in Jewish journalism: IJN columnist Tehilla Goldberg accepted her first place award for excellence in commentary.
Shana Goldberg accepted first and second place awards on behalf of IJN Senior Writer Andrea Jacobs and Assistant Editor Chris Leppek for excellence in feature writing and personality profiles.
The St. Louis Jewish Light, Baltimore Jewish Times, Hadassah Magazine and Forward were multiple award winners.

The IJN’s dinner company included the irreverent and insightful David Suissa of the Jewish Journal (Los Angeles), who picked up two awards on the night; Rukhl Schaechter and Jordan Kutzik of the Yiddish Forward, each of whom won an award; religion writer Michele Chabin; Zelda Shluker of Hadassah Magazine; and Dana Herman of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, which sponsors an award in the American Jewish history category, previously won twice by IJN executive editor Rabbi Hillel Goldberg.

Alan Cooperman, director of religion research at Pew Research Center, shared less reported data from the 2013 survey of US Jews, making the case that the study entailed some “good news.” To a room full of skeptical journalists? They were not totally convinced, but engaged by the discussion of what it means to identify as Jewish in America.




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