Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Forward Takes Home a Record 13 Rockower Awards

The Forward swept the 30th Simon Rockower awards Wednesday night, winning a record 13 awards, including nine first-place honors that recognized journalistic excellence in every section of the weekly newspaper and the overall quality of its website, forward.com.

The awards, honoring the best Jewish journalism published in 2010, were presented by the American Jewish Press Association at its annual conference, held this year in Dallas. Leaders of Jewish newspapers and magazines from around the country attended.

The awards were judged by an independent panel of journalists convened by the AJPA. The Forward competed against newspapers with more than 15,000 circulation.

“These awards are especially gratifying because they affirm the exceptional breadth and depth of the Forward’s journalism and recognize the hard work of a dedicated and talented staff,” said Editor Jane Eisner.

The work by Art Director Kurt Hoffman and Deputy Art Director Richard Harrington won top honors in two categories — overall design and best front page. Forward.com, led by Gabrielle Birkner, director of digital media, won first place for outstanding website.

The other first-place awards honored for excellence in:

• Editorial Writing, “Faith at Ground Zero,” by Jane Eisner

• Photography, “The Last Shtetl Jews of Belarus,” by Diana Markosian

• Personality Profiles, “The World Cup Winner,” by Dan Friedman

• Special Sections, “Abraham Cahan,” edited by Lillian Swanson and Dan Friedman

• Single Commentary, “When the Slumlords are Us,” by Jill Jacobs

• Health Writing, “C-Sections: A Birthing Debate Divides New Moms,” by Sarah Wildman

Josh Nathan-Kazis won two second-place awards, one for comprehensive coverage for the series, “The Cost of Belonging,” and the other for a profile, “The Leading Jew in Labor Wears Pearls.” A.J. Goldmann won second-place in news reporting for his story, “At the Death Camps, Muslim Leaders Grapple With Jews’ Pain.” Joshua Furst’s review of “The Merchant of Venice” won a second-place award for his story, “Al Pacino’s Pain.”.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.