Philip Slomovitz, editor and publisher of The Jewish News in Detroit, is the winner of the first Smolar Award for Excellence in American-Jewish Journalism. He was named by a group of outstanding Jewish communal leaders and Journalists who comprised the Smolar Award committee established last year by the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds. The annual award, named for Boris Smolar, Editor Emeritus of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, is given for outstanding reportage of Jewish communal affairs and issues in North America. Formal announcement of the award will be made this weekend at the 41st General Assembly of the CJF meeting in Toronto.
Slomovitz, who will be 76 years old on Dec. 5, has been a nationally famous journalist for decades and deeply involved in communal and Zionist activities. The Russian-born Journalist-editor-publisher is the recipient of more than 60 awards from Michigan organizations – civic and Jewish, war veterans, Zionist and educational groups, Slomovitz won national fame for his coverage of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961 which he covered for The Jewish News, the Detroit Free Press and 15 Jewish weeklies. He made 16 trips to Israel for news coverage and was war correspondent in 1967.
A vice-president of the JTA, Slomovitz is also honorary vice-president of the Zionist Organization of America and the president of its Detroit chapter, president of the Detroit chapter of the American Jewish Congress for the last seven years and member of the AJ Congress national administrative committee for five years. He was the founder of the American Jewish Press Association and its president for the first 10 years.
His other expansive Journalistic activities over the decades include: contributor to numerous magazines, Universal Jewish Encyclopedia and Encyclopaedia Judaica; accredited United Nations Organization correspondent during the founding months of the UN in San Francisco in 1945 and accredited UN correspondent from 1946-49.
During his student days, Slomovitz was managing editor of the University of Michigan Daily, president of the university’s Menorah Society and winner of the Sigma Delta Chi editorial contest. He was on the editorial staff of the Detroit News prior to his entering the field of Jewish Journalism as editor of the Detroit Jewish Chronicle which in 1951 was merged with the Detroit Jewish News.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
