On October 10, the Berman Archive hosted our first event, Jewish Media in America, featuring the leaders of Jewish Currents, the Forward, and J. The Jewish News of Northern California. It was fortuitous, helpful, and heartening to have the opportunity to grapple with the question of how to talk about the war in real time, guided by some of the key shapers of American Jewish discourse.
Of her work at the Forward, Editor-in-Chief Jodi Rudoren said, “We have this great privilege to think about this thing and to try and make sense of it and to help you make sense of it.”
Arielle Angel, Editor-in-Chief of Jewish Currents, addressed the personal and political tensions of the moment when she said, “This crisis has exposed fractures on the Jewish left—our whole newsroom has been affected by this event.” She added, “Our priority is to speak to our audience. There is shared grief and shared commitment to justice, but the way the grief looks and the way justice will play out are very difficult. Because we serve the Jewish left, we’re feeling those convulsions.”
Thank you to everyone who came out to our first event. And thank you to our incredible speakers and guests for taking the time to have a hard and important conversation. If you’d like to see the recording, we’ve posted the video to youtube:
