Murray Zuckoff, JTA Editor, 79
Murray Zuckoff, a longtime Jewish Telegraphic Agency editor-in-chief, died Sunday in New York of lung cancer at age 79. Zuckoff served as JTA editor from 1969 to 1987. In his own columns, he wrote on a wide range of issues, including Israel, poverty, black-Jewish relations and the way that Jewish issues are covered in the general media.
Zuckoff was born on the Lower East Side and was a reporter on Paterson, N.J’s The Morning Call before coming to JTA. He later served as an editor of Midstream magazine.
He was also a founder of the Jewish Liberation Project, a 1960s-era radical group that some say presaged the Jewish counterculture of the 1970s.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chiefSupport our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
