Dear *|FNAME|*,

I am excited and honored to share that Jewish Currents’ staff and contributors were recently recognized with 16 awards from the American Jewish Press Association’s 42nd annual Simon Rockower Awards for work published in 2022. These awards not only recognize the incredible talent of our staff and contributors, but also serve as testament to the impact that Jewish Currents is making in a Jewish media landscape that has for too long been dominated by right-wing money and centrist politics.

I am especially proud to highlight the first place wins for our staff members, pieces the AJPA’s panel described as “smart,” “thorough,” and “masterful”:

• “Deborah Lipstadt vs. ‘The Oldest Hatred’” by Mari Cohen won the David Frank Award for Excellence in Personality Profiles

• “What the Fossil Fuel Industry Learned from Anti-BDS Laws” by Alex Kane was awarded first place for Excellence in Writing About Politics/Government

• “The Passion of 964 Park Place” by Ari M. Brostoff was awarded first place in Excellence in Writing About Black-Jewish Relationships

In addition, Jewish Currents’ Soviet issue and coverage related to the war in Ukraine received seven wins. This included multiple awards for “Faces of Flight,” in which portrait artist Anna Lukashevsky documented new immigrants to Israel fleeing the war in Ukraine. Our multivocal “second draft of history” on the Soviet Jewry movement, “The Soviet Jewry Movement, Revisited,” took top honors, and “stood apart in a large field of strong entries,” according to the judges. An editor’s favorite, “Bela’s Pilgrim” by Bela Shayevich, won in the personal essay category, and a profile of Roman Abramovich by contributing editor David Klion, “Our Oligarch,” took second place in a category devoted to reporting on the Ukraine war.

Our arts coverage also received high honors, with Zoé Samudzi’s essay on a sanitized Philip Guston retrospective, “Under the Hood,” and Michael Casper’s evisceration of the Jewish Museum’s Jonas Mekas retrospective, “World War II Revisionism at the Jewish Museum,” both receiving first place wins. The review panel commented that Casper’s reporting was “courageous and brilliant.”

I hope that you will join us in celebrating this well-deserved recognition. Please consider making a contribution to support these writers and our award-winning journalism today.

With nachas,

Daniel May
Publisher