“Three score and 10, or by reason of strength, 20” is a familiar quote from the Book of Proverbs marking the gift of a long and vigorous life.  This quotation applies to this year’s 70^th Anniversary Annual Conference of the American Jewish Press Association (AJPA), which took place Nov. 9-11 in National Harbor, Md., a suburb of Washington. 

The AJPA is the professional organization that represents Jewish newspapers, magazines, electronic media, social media and individual Jewish journalists.  The Jewish Light and its predecessor local Jewish publications have played key roles in the origins and development of the AJPA.

I had the privilege of serving as president of the AJPA from 1972-77 and from 1984-88. As a past president, I continue to serve on the AJPA’s executive committee along with  Light Publisher and CEO Larry Levin, who was just elected the organization’s treasurer after having served as membership chair, and Editor Ellen Futterman.  Levin and Futterman have presented several workshops at our AJPA annual conferences during which editors, publishers and business managers of member publications and individual Jewish journalists exchange ideas.

In preparing this article, I was pleased to have at hand a similar piece I had written in 2004 marking the 60^th anniversary of AJPA at its conference in Atlanta.  I also benefitted again from a 1972 article by our late and esteemed colleague Joseph Polakoff, a longtime Washington bureau chief of the JTA and freelance writer  after whom an AJPA career service award was named.

Thanks to Polakoff’s painstaking research, with the cooperation of the late Gabriel Cohen, editor and publisher of the National Jewish Post & Opinion, it was documented that the AJPA officially came into being at its first annual conference in Indianapolis in 1944.

Cohen served as the host and chairman of the steering committee that sought to create the national organization, which was founded as the Association of English Language American Jewish Newspapers, a name selected to differentiate English-language papers from those printed in Yiddish. 

About two months after the initial gathering, a follow-up meeting was held in Chicago, where the late Philip Slomovitz, editor and publisher of the Detroit Jewish News,  was elected the first president of what is now the AJPA. Slomovitz was one of the early “deans” of the American Jewish media and served as president until 1953, when he was succeeded by the late Fred K. Schochet, publisher of the Jewish Floridian.

At the outset, the AJPA restricted its membership to weekly Jewish newspapers that were independently owned and operated.  Until 1970, only one newspaper per community could become a member. That early and clearly discriminatory rule meant that Cohen, who published regional editions of his paper in various cities including St. Louis, was expelled from the very organization he helped co-found.  

Over the years, membership was gradually broadened to include Jewish Federation-affiliated newspapers, biweekly papers, Jewish magazines, JTA and other electronic media, and finally individual Jewish journalists and Jewish organizational communications professionals.  

The AJPA later merged with the American Jewish Public Relations Society and the International Jewish Media Association, making it possible to gain members from other nations.

As might be expected in an organization made up of strong-willed editors, publishers, business managers and journalists, there have been serious factional disputes within the AJPA over the years.  A last-minute compromise motion to placate two factions was passed at that first meeting in 1944, averting the organization’s death at its very inception. 

Battles often raged between and among private publications and Jewish newspapers affiliated with or published by  Jewish Federations.  Turf battles also were fought over territory exclusivity and troubling advertising practices. At one AJPA conference in Denver in the 1970s, two of our colleagues nearly came to blows.  Those volatile confrontations, which made our annual gatherings “colorful,” have been replaced by calm and collegial gatherings that are both businesslike and friendly.

The early AJPA leaders were a colorful group with 19^th century names like Joseph Jonah Cummins of the Los Angeles B’nai B’rith Messenger, Elias Rex Jacobs of the Buffalo Jewish Review, Jack Fishbein of the Chicago Sentinel and Adolph Rosenberg of the Southern Israelite of Atlanta.  

A younger “Silver Age” group came into AJPA ranks starting with the presidency of Jimmy Wisch, longtime editor and publisher of the Texas Jewish Post, whose granddaughter Amy Doty would serve as AJPA president years later.

A dramatic St. Louis connection with AJPA took place in June 1967, when the Six-Day War broke out during the organization’s first annual conference in Jerusalem. Geoffrey Fisher, then-editor of the Jewish Light, filed a story headlined, “No Choice But to Fight to the Death,” based on his eyewitness observation of an Israel Defense Forces unit going through battle tactics on Mount Herzl.

During the AJPA presidency of the late Frank Wundohl of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, the Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism were created through a generous gift from the Rockower family.  

Over these past 70 years, AJPA has evolved into a modern, professional association of Jewish publications, electronic and other media and individual Jewish journalists.  The original “Mom and Pop” warmth of prior decades has been replaced with the camaraderie and collegiality among reporters, editors and business managers in Jewish journalism.  

The AJPA operates under a strict code of ethics and modern by-laws. In recent years, it also has been well-served by an excellent professional staff.

As we move to the next 70 years, let us rededicate ourselves to our founding mission of providing a formal professional association for the exchange of ideas, and for the enhancement and betterment of the quality and service to our readers of the American Jewish public, and our advertisers.