39 People Making Waves Across the Jewish Media Landscape
39 People Making Waves Across the Jewish Media Landscape
A look at the faces whose work is moving the Jewish media world forward.
Jewish content seems to be having its 15 minutes of fame, and for good reason! Here are some of the people we can thank for this:
1. Alana Newhouse
Alana Newhouse is the editor-in-chief of Tablet Magazine, a daily online magazine launched in 2009. A hub of Jewish life, Tablet features news, essays, podcasts, and opinion, covering arts, pop culture, technology, holidays, sports and more.
Newhouse is a graduate of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, and has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Slate.
2. Jason Harris
Jason Harris is a Jewish educator and former politico working on Capitol Hill, who has a passion for teaching Jewish and Israeli history. He hosts the Jew Oughta Know podcast, now in its sixth season. Thousands of listeners all over the world tune in to learn about Jewish and Israeli history via short, digestible and insightful episodes.
3. David Redman
David Redman was appointed CEO of Polaris Media, publisher of The Australian Jewish News, among other properties. He is an experienced media executive and award-winning film and television producer, having spent more than 25 years growing businesses and projects across Australia, Europe, Asia, and the U.S. The longest-serving council member of Screen Producers Australia, Redman founded both Harvest Pictures and Instinct Entertainment, one of Australia’s most prolific feature film production companies.
4. Emma Seligman
Emma Seligman is a screenwriter and director. Her feature film, Shiva Baby, premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. Darkly comic, the film depicts a college student who runs into her sugar daddy and ex-girlfriend at a Jewish funeral service. The Cut called the film “a hilarious, claustrophobic coming-of-age lark that anoints Seligman as a bright new directing talent.”
5. Neil Lazarus
Neil Lazarus is an internationally acclaimed expert in the fields of Middle East politics, public diplomacy, and effective communication training. He is fast emerging as one of Israel’s leading keynote speakers — speaking to 30,000-plus people a year — and his podcasts explore many of the myths surrounding Israel.
6. Dan Libenson
Dan Libenson is the founder and executive director of Judaism Unbound. He is also the co-host of the Judaism Unbound podcast and The Oral Talmud videocast.
Libenson was Executive Director of the University of Chicago Hillel for six years and Director of New Initiatives at Harvard Hillel for three years. He is a 2009 AVI CHAI Fellow and has also received the Richard M. Joel Exemplar of Excellence award, Hillel International's highest professional honor.
» Listen to Dan on the The Future of Jewish podcast:
7. Yael Trusch
Yael Trusch is the creator of the bilingual Jewish lifestyle blog and weekly podcast for women, Jewish Latin Princess. She is an influencer, communicator, and promoter of a joyful, richer Jewish life, inspiring women around the globe with her positivity and colorful persona.
8. Andrew Savage
Andrew Savage is the CEO of OpenDor Media, a leading creator of Jewish films and digital content since 2009. With an extensive portfolio of products — which now also includes podcasts, YouTube videos, articles, and educational resources — OpenDor Media continues to further its mission to open the door of Jewish education to this dor (“generation” in Hebrew).
9. Nancy Spielberg
Nancy Spielberg grew up immersed in filmmaking, working on her brother’s early films as cast and crew. Among several other documentaries, she is the executive producer of Who Will Write Our History, which tells the story of the secret buried archive of the Warsaw Ghetto; as well as the producer of Above and Beyond, about a group of Jewish American war pilots smuggle planes out of the U.S. and fly for Israel in its War of Independence.
10. Rudy Rochman
Rudy Rochman is a Jewish and Israeli rights activist, with an impressive social media following. He creates content to strengthen Jewish identity, combat antisemitism, and generate a sense of collective unity in Israel. In addition, Rochman is currently working on a documentary called We Were Never Lost, which tells the stories of Jewish communities from across the globe who have not been brought into the larger Jewish fold.
11. Liel Leibovitz
Liel Leibovitz is editor at large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast, Unorthodox, and daily Talmud podcast, Take One. With more than 250 episodes and five million downloads, Unorthodox features a fun survey of the News of the Jews, followed by two interviews: a Jew of the Week and a Gentile of the Week. On Take One, Leibovitz reads the daily page of Talmud each morning, calling on friends and experts to help make this ancient text relevant in modern times.
12. Josh Ostrovsky
Josh Ostrovsky, known by his Instagram handle, TheFatJewish, is an entrepreneur and social media influencer known for his eccentric style and irreverent humor. His Instagram account went viral in 2013, and he now has 10.1 million followers. In 2015, Time magazine named Ostrovsky on its list of The 30 Most Influential People on the Internet.
13. Salvador Litvak
Salvador Litvak was born in Santiago, Chile, and grew up in New York. A self-described “gangly Jewtino redhead,” he is a filmmaker whose films include the Passover comedy and cult hit When Do We Eat? as well as Saving Lincoln, which depicts the true story of Abraham Lincoln and his closest friend, Ward Hill Lamon. Litvak also shares a daily bit of ancient Jewish wisdom on The Accidental Talmudist Podcast.
» Listen to Salvador on the The Future of Jewish podcast:
14. Guy Sharett
Guy Sharett is a former journalist and current host of StreetWise Hebrew, a bite-size podcast showcasing modern Hebrew and its slang. In his podcast, he offers what we can learn about Israeli psyche, society, and culture through the Hebrew language.
15. Chanie Apfelbaum
Chanie Apfelbaum is a recipe developer, cooking instructor, brand ambassador, food blogger, photographer, and author of the popular cookbook, Millennial Kosher. She also has an impressive following on Instagram, where she posts under the handle: busyinbrooklyn. Her recipes put a spin on old-time favorites to give them a modern, gourmet vibe, and all of them follow kosher dietary laws and standards.
16. Jamie Geller
Jamie Geller is an American-Israeli award-winning television producer, celebrity chef, businesswoman, and most recently, the new Chief Media & Marketing Officer at Aish. She is also a bestselling author of eight cookbooks and the founder of Kosher Network International.
» Listen to Jamie on the The Future of Jewish podcast:
17. Hen Mazzig
Hen Mazzig is a prominent digital influencer. More than 100 million users have interacted with his online content, while his Instagram supposedly has a higher engagement rate than Kim Kardashian, Cristiano Rinaldo, and Nike. He has authored numerous viral campaigns such as “#JewishPrivilege,” where he inspired others to speak out about the falsehood of Jews having advantages in modern society, and “#JewishLooking” where thousands of Jews celebrated the ethnic and racial diversity of the community.
18. Julia Jassey
When University of Chicago undergrad Julia Jassey isn’t spending her time in the library, she’s a fellow at Unpacked and the host of the Nice Jewish Girls podcast, about Jewish girls who are so much more than nice. Since accidentally starting her career as a professional Jew, Jassey has become a de facto expert on college antisemitism and an advocate for feminism in Jewish spaces.
19. Avi Melamed
Avi Melamed is a former Israeli Intelligence Official and Senior Official on Arab Affairs, which propelled him to expertise on current affairs in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and their impact on Israel and the Middle East.
In recent years, Melamed runs a U.S.-based organization called Inside the Middle East – Intelligence Perspectives, alongside Maia Hoffman — providing professional, apolitical, non-partisan, intelligence-based contextualized education and knowledge about the Middle East. He has also authored three books in English about the Middle East, his latest one titled Inside the Middle East – Entering a New Era, which was published in February 2022.
» Listen to Avi on the The Future of Jewish podcast:
20. Hillel Fuld
Hillel Fuld has been named the seventh top tech blogger worldwide and has been dubbed Israel’s top marketer. Forbes called him “The Man Transforming Startup Nation to Scale up Nation,” and his work is published in some of the world’s top tech publications, including TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Inc, Entrepreneur, The Next Web, and Business Insider. He collaborates with leading global brands including Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Nike.
21. Ami Eden
Ami Eden played a lead role in bringing about the merger of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and MyJewishLearning, culminating in the creation of 70 Faces Media, a nonprofit digital media organization that aspires to connect as many people as possible to all sides of the unfolding Jewish story. Their brands collectively serve as a virtual town square, highlighting and hosting a multitude of conversations informing people about Jewish news, history, traditions, values, entertainment and culture.
22. Jonathan Silver
Jonathan Silver is the editor of Mosaic, a magazine that takes a lively, serious, and committed approach to Jewish issues and ideas. Covering politics, society, culture, religion and the arts, it offers criticism and argument, takes positions and defends them, and joins hands with those everywhere intent on preserving the traditions and promoting the interests of the Jewish People.
23. Karen Cinnamon
Karen Cinnamon is the founder of Smashing Life, the fastest-growing community membership club for Jewish and Jew(ish) women, as well as Smashing The Glass, the world’s biggest Jewish wedding platform. With offices in New York City and London, they create warm, inclusive communities for like-minded Jewish and Jew-ish women to learn, grow, and support one another, and build the joyful Jew(ish) life they want, on their terms.
» Listen to Karen on the The Future of Jewish podcast:
24. Eve Barlow
Eve Barlow is a music and culture journalist with close to 50 thousand Instagram followers. She regularly posts about subjects that matter to her, most notably Judaism and Zionism. Her work has been published by publications including Tablet, New York Magazine, The Guardian, The LA Times, Pitchfork, and GQ. She also writes a popular newsletter, “Blacklisted: The dangerous things I think out loud.”
25. David Katznelson
David Katznelson is a Grammy nominated music producer and the CEO of Reboot, an arts and culture nonprofit that reimagines and reinforces Jewish thought and traditions. As a premier research and development platform for the Jewish world, they catalyze a network of preeminent creators, artists, entrepreneurs and activists to produce experiences and products that evolve the Jewish conversation and transform society.
26. Bret Stephens
Bret Stephens is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, editor, and columnist. He began working as an opinion columnist for The New York Times in April 2017 and as a senior contributor to NBC News in June 2017. He is also Editor-in-Chief of SAPIR, a journal which explores the future of the American Jewish community and its intersection with cultural, social, and political issues.
27. Miriam Anzovin
Miriam Anzovin became a TikTok sensation thanks to her hot-take reactions of the Talmud and other Jewish texts, “locally sourced from a millennial brain” — with the goal of making Judaism sparkle for everyone — religious and non-religious Jews alike.
» Listen to Miriam on the The Future of Jewish podcast:
28. Mark Charendoff
Mark Charendoff is the Publisher of SAPIR, a journal which explores the future of the American Jewish community and its intersection with cultural, social, and political issues. He is also President at The Maimonides Fund, and was past President of the Jewish Funders Network, Past Vice President of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, and a recipient of the Bernard Reisman Award for Professional Excellence from Brandeis University.
29. Ashager Araro
Ashager Araro is an Israeli Ethiopian activist with a strong following on Instagram, where she posts under the handle: blackjewishmagic. She is regularly featured in Jewish press and has written articles for the Jewish Journal and The Jerusalem Post. She is also the founder of the Battae center, an interactive, first-of-its-kind Ethiopian Israeli Heritage Center, serving as a place for guests to explore and appreciate the story of Ethiopian Jews in Israel.
30. Blake Flayton
Blake Flayton is a young writer and activist with a considerable following on Instagram, where he shares posts about being a proud gay and Zionist Jew. He regularly writes for the Jewish Journal and has been featured on CNN. He also, along with other Jewish college students, founded the New Zionist Congress: a nonprofit organization that believes Zionism is a constantly morphing ideology, and works to come alongside young Zionists to help them develop New Zionist rhetoric for a more mature Israel.
31. Abraham Socher
Abraham Socher is the author of The Radical Enlightenment of Solomon Maimon: Judaism, Philosophy, Heresy. In 2010, he founded Jewish Review of Books, which he continues to edit. A lively magazine of insights and argument, criticism and commentary, Jewish Review of Books was described by Jacob Epstein as “an essential source not only for Jewish readers but for serious readers in general.”
32. Nikki Schreiber
Following her father’s sudden passing in 2013, Nikki Schreiber decided to do something in his memory, so she created an Instagram account called Humans of Judaism, which shares remarkable stories of Jews from across the world.
» Listen to Nikki on the The Future of Jewish podcast:
33. Richard Ferrer
Richard Ferrer is a British journalist and editor of Britain’s Jewish News. After working for the website totallyjewish.com from 2000 to 2004, he edited the Boston Jewish Advocate, the United States’ oldest Jewish newspaper, before returning to the U.K.
34. Simon Plosker
Simon Plosker is the Managing Editor of UN Watch, a nonprofit organization dedicated to holding the United Nations accountable to its founding principles.
From 2005 to 2020, he was Managing Editor of HonestReporting following several years working in a variety of nonprofit organizations, and immigrating to Israel from London in 2001.
» Listen to Simon on the The Future of Jewish podcast:
35. Dr. Aviva Dautch
Dr. Aviva Dautch is the Executive Director of Jewish Renaissance, the UK’s quarterly Jewish arts magazine. Offering a fresh perspective on Jewish culture, the magazine offers intelligent, exciting and challenging content and uncovers the wealth of diverse activity taking place in Jewish communities around the world.
Dautch has a PhD in contemporary poetry and her poems have been published in magazines and anthologies internationally.
36. Arielle Angel
Arielle Angel is Editor-in-Chief of Jewish Currents. In 2016, she was a Fellow at Tent: Creative Writing at The Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. And her work has appeared in Guernica, Off Assignment, Protocols, and Poor Claudia.
37. Yossi Klein Halevi
Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Together with Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke University, he co-directs the Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative, which teaches emerging young Muslim American leaders about Judaism, Jewish identity, and Israel.
Halevi’s 2013 book, Like Dreamers, won the Jewish Book Council’s Everett Book of the Year Award. His latest book, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, is a New York Times bestseller. He writes for leading op-ed pages in the US, including the Times and the Wall Street Journal, and is a former contributing editor to the New Republic.
» Listen to Yossi on the The Future of Jewish podcast:
38. Daniel Gordis
Daniel Gordis is one of the founders of Shalem College in Jerusalem, Israel’s first and only liberal arts college. The author of twelve books, two of which have won the National Jewish Book Award, he writes about Zionism and contemporary Israel, exploring the souls of the people who are the Jewish state.
The Forward has called Gordis “one of the most respected Israel analysts around.” In 2014, The Jerusalem Post listed him as one of the world’s 50 most influential Jews. Gordis’ history of Israel, Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn ,has been translated into six languages. His latest book is: We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel.
39. Jodi Rudoren
Jodi Rudoren became Editor-in-Chief of Forward in 2019, a not-for-profit newspaper that delivers incisive coverage of the issues, ideas, and institutions which matter to U.S. Jews. More than a million visitors turn to the Forward each month for contrarian, cosmopolitan, and intelligent news and commentary.
Thanks for this roadmap to the Jewish Future! I refer both to your thoughtful exploration generally, and to these helpful profiles in particular. I love the diversity of our Jewish world!