JTA takes 6 Rockower Awards for journalistic excellence

Published June 27, 2013

NEW YORK (JTA) — JTA won six awards, including three for first place, in the 32nd Annual Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism.

The awards were handed out this week at the American Jewish Press Association’s annual conference, which this year was held in Seattle, Wash.

JTA first-place winners:

* Managing Editor Uriel Heilman, the Boris Smolar Award for Excellence in Enterprise or Investigative Reporting, for Can Greg Schneider steer the Claims Conference past a $57m fraud?”
* Uri Fintzy, web content producer, for Excellence in a Multi-Media Story with “Holy hoops — The story of the Beren Academy basketball team.”
* Ron Kampeas, Washington Bureau chief, the Award for Excellence in Blogging on “Capital J.”
JTA second-place winners were Chavie Lieber, the Award for Excellence in Feature Writing with “For Jewish Deadheads, the music never stopped”; Dvora Meyers, the Award for Excellence in Arts and Criticism with

“Is HBO’s ‘Girls’ about young women’s struggles, or some women’s privileges?”; and columnist Edmon J. Rodman, the Award for Excellence in Personal Essay for “Dressing like my Jewish mother.”

Other first-place winners included:

The Louis Rapoport Award for Excellence in Commentary: New Jersey Jewish News, “Heaven can wait,” “Washed out,” “Speak politics the Jewish way,” by Andrew Silow-Carroll.

Award for Excellence in Single Commentary: Hadassah Magazine, “Letter from Jerusalem: Triage for founding values,” by Gershom Gorenberg.

Award for Excellence in News Reporting: Jewish Standard, Teaneck, N.J., “Love and hate in Bergen County,” by Larry Yudelson, Charles Zusman, Josh Lipowsky and Abigail Klein Leichman.