J. The Jewish News of Northern California has been recognized for excellence in Jewish journalism, scooping up 11 Rockower Awards Tuesday night, including the top prize as best Jewish newspaper in the country.
The awards were presented at the American Jewish Press Association’s annual conference in New Orleans, recognizing work published in 2022 in three dozen competitive categories, including investigative reporting, social justice, art criticism, education and food.
Of J.’s 11 awards, seven were first place. The winning journalists are news editor Gabe Stutman, culture editor Andrew Esensten, staff writers Emma Goss and Maya Mirsky, and three regular contributors — former J. news editor Dan Pine, books columnist Howard Freedman and Oakland photographer Brooke Anderson. TV reviewer Esther D. Kustanowitz also won for a J. article she submitted independently.
The judge who gave J. its first place win as best newspaper added praise, saying the publication “features political and serious community news based on original reporting, not press releases. It publishes off-the-beaten-track features not intended to promote big givers. It offers opinion, but not as its main focus and it’s laid out and designed beautifully.” The judge also called J. “the paper where I would have worked when I began my career as a reporter four decades ago.”
This is the 42nd year of the Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism.
First-place awards
Enterprise/Investigative (series): Goyim TV flyers claiming Covid is Jewish plot land in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights; Is ‘Goyim TV’ succeeding?; Berkeley yoga instructor fired for links to ‘Goyim TV’; Polish police arrest Minadeo during white supremacist tour of Europe; America’s most prolific antisemitic propaganda group leaves Bay Area by Gabe Stutman
Social Justice: On Ohlone land: How Bay Area Jewish activists are honoring Indigenous people by Andrew Esensten
Antisemitism: Anxious age: Jews face open antisemitism in tense political era by Gabe Stutman
Arts Review/Criticism: Mikołaj Grynberg’s haunting stories provide portrait of postwar Poland by Howard Freedman
Health Care: Jewish housing crisis: Aging parents fear for their special-needs kids by Emma Goss
Education: Ethnic studies debate comes to UC system with proposed admission requirement by Gabe Stutman
General Excellence – Best Newspaper (three issues): J. Staff
Second-place awards
Photography: Jews join Bay Area abortion rights protests in force by Brooke Anderson
Arts Review/Criticism: ‘Undone’ imagines reversing intergenerational trauma in a Mexican-Jewish-American family by Esther D. Kustanowitz
Honorable mentions
News: Sierra Club cancels trips to Israel at urging of progressive and anti-Zionist groups by Gabe Stutman
Food & Wine: Bay Area delis and Jewish markets of yore — gone but not forgotten by Maya Mirsky
Seniors: Two Holocaust survivors celebrate long-delayed b’nai mitzvah together by Dan Pine
A full list of all the winners is available here.