Jewish newspapers had been in decline in the late 1950s. Sensing the need for Jewish content created by this void, two leading rabbis, Moshe Feinstein and Simcha Elberg, delegated the task of filling it to Sholom Klass. Klass, together with his father-in-law Raphael Schreiber, founded The Jewish Press in January 1960, resolving to publish a national weekly newspaper in English that "everyone in America will be able to read". The first issue was published on January 29th of that year. Elliot Resnick serves as the paper's chief editor. Former editors have included Jason Maoz, Meir Kahane, Arnold Fine, Julius Liebb and Steve Walz. The online edition is run by Stephen Leavitt.
Editorial policy
The Jewish Press is oriented toward the Modern Orthodox Jewish community, covering Jewish news from New York City, the United States, and Israel. The newspaper describes itself as having a politically conservative viewpoint and editorial policy, and "politically incorrect long before the phrase was coined." It has covered controversial topics such as the sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Haredi community. In 1990, ultraconservative Catholic weekly The Wanderer reported about a notice posted in The Jewish Pressexcommunicating U.S. Representative Barney Frank, seeking to affirm similar practice in the Catholic Church. It was later pointed out to them that the notice was posted by an outlier, and that Judaism lacked a centralized excommunication process. Abraham Hecht, president of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, said "If we were going to start excommunicating, we'd have a list as long as the New York telephone directory". In March 2014, The newspaper fired its Israel-based online edition editor Yori Yanover after he wrote an op-ed titled "50 Thousand Haredim March So Only Other Jews Die in War." The piece was in reference to a Haredi Jewish prayer rally in Manhattan protesting the draft of Yeshiva students to the Israel Defence Forces. The editorial board issued an apology saying "The article in question was posted without authorization and approval of The Jewish Press newspaper.." and "the sentiments expressed in the article and headline do not represent these of the Jewish Press, its officers, editors and staff." Yanover wrote a response in which he replied, "I wrote the article after discussion with my supervisor and then submitted the article for review, as per the protocol you established."
Sections
News: includes news focusing on the Middle East, recent news items with anti-Israel bias, and kosher food news.
Opinion: includes editorials, Israeli political analysis, and Op-Eds.
Features: includes religious columns, Jewish law, a weekly kosher dining guide, the Jewish Press Magazine, and youth sections. Monthly specials are printed in addition to features and supplements before each of the major Jewish holidays.
Among the blogs and bloggers published on JewishPress.com are Donny Fuchs, Paula R. Stern's A Soldier's Mother, Jameel @ The Muqata, JoeSettler, Harry Maryle's Emes ve-Emuna, @IsraelShield, Batya Medad's Shiloh Musings, Frimet and Arnold Roth's This Ongoing War, David Israel, Israel Mizrahi's musings on rare and unusual Jewish books, and Ambassador Yoram Ettinger's The Ettinger Report.
