Journalism

February 5, 2016

Can Jewish Pluralism Be Salvaged?

Noam Green

Every Thursday, the Jewish Standard, a community newspaper catered to the diverse North Jersey and Rockland County Jewish populations, is delivered to my house just in time for Shabbat. When I was younger, I used to look forward to its arrival. I would straighten out the pages and perch on the couch like the adults I saw on television, immersing myself in the cultural happenings of my local Jewish community.

Topics: Spirituality and Religious Life, Journalism

Carly Zakin

Carly Zakin teamed up with longtime friend and fellow journalist Danielle Weisberg to create theSkimm, a daily newsletter aimed at sparking the interest of millennials who often avoid traditional news sources.

Danielle Weisberg

Frustrated by friends who didn’t share her passion for the news, Danielle Weisberg joined forces with longtime friend Carly Zakin to create theSkimm, a digital newsletter for millennials.

Katie Orenstein

Noting how few women were viewed as experts or opinion-makers in their fields, Katie Orenstein founded the OpEd Project in 2008 to ensure women (and their priorities) shape discussion on important issues.

Liz Lerman

Hailed by the New York Times as “One of the most articulate and compassionate of social commentators in the arts today,” choreographer Liz Lerman has drawn inspiration from such unlikely sources as the US defense budget and a Department of Energy report on nuclear waste.

Leslie Feinberg

A working-class lesbian, transgender activist, and communist, Leslie Feinberg became an important voice for lesbians of hir generation with the publication of hir powerful 1993 novel Stone Butch Blues.

Nicolette Mason

Body-positive blogger Nicolette Mason has become a leader in creating and celebrating fashion for women of all sizes and shapes.

Carry van Bruggen

Fighting the constraints of her Orthodox upbringing and expectations of her role as a wife and mother, novelist Carry van Bruggen wrote movingly of both the need for freedom and the isolation it could bring.

Suzanne Brogger

Born to Jewish refugees in Denmark during the Nazi occupation, Suzanne Brogger made her family’s story the heart of her powerful novels and essays.

Ruth Bondy

Journalist Ruth Bondy made larger events more relatable for readers through her insightful human interest stories.

Sabina Berman

A Jewish writer exploring her outsider identity in largely Catholic Mexico, Sabina Berman was the first writer to win the Mexican Theater Prize four times.

Hemdah Ben-Yehuda

Hemdah Ben-Yehuda collaborated with her husband, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, to revive ancient Hebrew and make it a truly functional living language.

Rachel Sassoon Beer

Rachel Sassoon Beer rose to fame as owner and editor of both The Observer and The Sunday Times, making her the first woman to edit a national newspaper.

Rokhl Auerbakh

Rokhl Auerbakh’s determination to record everything she witnessed in the Holocaust led to her creating the questionnaires to capture other survivors’ stories for war crime trials and Holocaust memorials.

Myriam Anissimov

Joking that she is a Yiddish writer working in French, novelist Myriam Anissimov has been celebrated for her portrayal of the difficulties faced by children of Holocaust survivors.

Tess Slesinger

A novelist with a skill for balancing deep emotion with biting satire, Tess Slesinger became one of the first writers to explicitly discuss abortion in her 1932 story, “Missis Flinders.”

Death of Flora Lewis, “the world’s greatest correspondent”

June 2, 2002

“More and more people are coming to realize that they can choose their history. What a wonderful time to have been able to watch up close!”

“The Factory Girl’s Danger” published in The Outlook

April 15, 1911

“No, we've got to keep on working, no matter what the danger. It's work or starve. That's all there is to it."

Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid’s writing captures the tensions of mother-daughter relationships and the displacement of the immigrant experience.

Death of writer Sarah Brandstein Smith, “Queen of the shundroman"

April 29, 1968

“Sarah B. Smith is the most beloved Jewish newspaperwoman, the first who ever served as a reporter on a Jewish paper, and the one who has triumphantly overcome the misgivings of editors who mistrusted the abilities of a mere woman writer.”

Dorothy Schiff

Dorothy Schiff led many lives, from debutante to social reformer, but she is best remembered as the publisher of the New York Post, the first woman to run a New York newspaper.

Alice Schalek

Alice Schalek made a name for herself as Austria’s first female war photographer during WWI and went on to a stunning career as a photojournalist and travel writer.

Betty Ross

At the cutting edge of journalism for her time, Betty Ross travelled the globe in search of stories and was one of the first journalists to experiment with radio interviews.

Lilly Rivlin

Lilly Rivlin has used her skills as a historian and documentary filmmaker to capture Jewish history in the making.

Fredrica Wechsler, 1929 - 2014

My mother was no shrinking violet. After a few weeks at home following the wedding, she got a job at the Gary Welfare Department, where she went on home visits and discovered Gary’s devastatingly impoverished African-American community. I am sure that this was a pivotal moment for her—and she never turned back.

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