Barbara Wolf of the North Shore Jewish Journal, Gary Rosenblatt of the Baitimore Jewish Times and Marc Silver of the B’nai B’rith International Jewish Monthly have been named recipients of the 1984 Smolar Awards for Excellence in North American Jewish Journalism, conferred by the Council of Jewish Federations.
Alan Marcuvitz of Milwaukee chairs the Smolar Awards Committee, which judged over 100 entries for the 1984 competition and selected 21 finalists, from whom the three winners were chosen.
Editor of the North Shore, Mass., Jewish Journal, Wolf won a Smolar Award in the Human Interest category for “Looking at History,” a two-part account of the “unprecedented storm of controversy” created by the Israeli government’s decision following World War II to accept German reparation payments.
“Desert Dialogue,” a report on the recent “First World Assembly of Young Jewish Leadership,” also known as the “Dead Sea Conference,” earned Gary Rosenblatt his Smolar Award in the Public Affairs category. One of the 120 young American and Israeli leaders who took part in this Conference which “managed to break down the stereotypes– on both sides,” Rosenblatt is the editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times.
Silver, editor of the Jewish Monthly, received the Smolar Award in the category of Magazine Writing for “Celebrating Survival at the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors,” which he described as a way of “showing the world that, to quote a Yiddish phrase often heard at the Gathering; ‘Mir Zyen daw we are here’.”
Established by CJF in 1971 in honor of Boris Smolar, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the Smolar Awards are designed to encourage the highest standards in North American Jewish Journalism. The 1984 Awards will be officially conferred at the CJF General Assembly, November 14-18, in Toronto.
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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.