JTA Names New Editor As Part of Management Reconfiguration

As part of a reconfiguration of its editorial management team, JTA has named a new editor.

Ami Eden, the managing editor since June, becomes editor in chief, effective immediately. He will be responsible for managing JTA’s editorial team and coordinating worldwide coverage, with a focus on domestic and political coverage in the United States.

Associate editor Uriel Heilman takes over as managing editor. His primary responsibility will be managing coverage of the Middle East.

Lisa Hostein, editor since 1994, will assume the new role of senior editor. She will manage foreign coverage outside Israel and assist with general editing.

“I am excited, honored and humbled to be taking the reins of such an important organization,” Eden said. “Our plan is to build upon JTA’s stellar history of journalistic excellence by continuing to improve our coverage of religion, philanthropy, politics, the Middle East, and arts and culture while bolstering our multimedia offerings.”

Before coming to JTA, Eden was the executive editor of the Forward newspaper, where he also served as the founding editor of the Jewish Daily Forward Web site, a Webby Award official honoree. He previously worked as an editor at the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.

Eden is the recipient of numerous journalism awards. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Ha’aretz, the International Herald Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Toledo Blade, Philadelphia Magazine and The Philadelphia City Paper, as well as on Beliefnet.com.

“Under Eden’s energetic leadership, I am confident JTA will soar to new heights of journalistic excellence,” said Mark Joffe, JTA’s executive editor and publisher.

The new arrangement also expands Heilman’s scope of responsibilities, putting what Joffe called “an extraordinarily thoughtful and capable individual” in charge of Middle East-related coverage coming out of JTA’s central office in New York and two of the agency’s most important bureaus — Israel and Washington.

Heilman previously served as the news editor and as a staff writer at JTA. He has garnered several Simon Rockower Awards for excellence in Jewish journalism, including first place for investigative reporting for his 2004 JTA series on the Claims Conference. Heilman also has served as New York bureau chief of the Jerusalem Post, and spent two years doing independent reporting in Israel and the Arab world.

Under the new arrangement, Joffe said, JTA will continue to benefit from Hostein’s quarter-century of experience in Jewish journalism.