We would like to take this opportunity to share a significant development in the long history of The Jewish Week.
It is no secret that the media and the Jewish publishing landscape have shifted drastically in recent years. In response, legacy newspapers like The Jewish Week have made significant investments in digital media while continuing to serve our readers and communities with a print publication of the highest quality.
As so many of our loyal readers have discovered in the past few months, life online offers opportunities for engagement, flexibility and information-sharing that can’t be matched by print products, even daily ones. Recognizing both what we’ve learned from the coronavirus crisis and how it has hurt our bottom line and that of our advertisers, The Jewish Week has decided to move faster in the direction of a digital-first enterprise.
Starting in August, the weekly print edition of The Jewish Week will go on hiatus, while we concentrate on bringing you an all-digital model that will satisfy our longtime audience, find a new generation of readers and enable us to more precisely target our journalism and advertising to the wide geographic expanse of the New York Jewish community.
We believe that the time is ripe to create a business and Jewish journalism model for the future, one that breaks away from the increasingly difficult financial realities of the printed page and embraces the space where more and more people are accessing their Jewish news. And in doing so we are pursuing a number of exciting collaborations, soon to be announced, that will position us for a healthy, prosperous future, and that will set a standard for other Jewish media outlets and agencies.
We also are confident that a digital-first model will enhance our ability to focus on what we do best: the quality journalism, provocative opinions and essential cultural coverage that the New York Jewish community deserves. While the method of delivery will evolve, our mission remains unchanged: to report on and help build a diverse Jewish community, creating conversations that are essential to its growth and vitality.
Our signature programs — including our popular Public Forums, Write On For Israel, The Conversation and Fresh Ink for Teens — will also continue to operate without skipping a beat.
We’re asking you, as loyal readers, to be more proactive in accessing and sharing the wealth of content available on our website. Subscribe to our newsletters. Times change, technology evolves, but our relationship with our readers remains the heart of The Jewish Week enterprise.
Our issue of July 31, our last in print before the hiatus, will come out after the week during which we read the Torah portion of Devarim – literally turning the page on one book, Numbers, and starting a new book, Deuteronomy. In between we recite the Hebrew formula “hazak, hazak, ve-nithazek” — be strong, be strong and may we be strengthened.
The Jewish Week is turning a page, and we are confident that we, and the Jewish community, will grow even stronger.
Kai Falkenberg
President, Board of Directors
Jewish Week Media Group
Andrew Silow-Carroll
Editor in Chief
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