Farewell to this particular press badge. Photo by Jodi Rudoren

Editor-in-Chief Jodi Rudoren April 5, 2025

In that famous Jewish book of aphorisms, Ethics of the Fathers, one has always resonated with me. Who is wise? asks the sage known as Ben Zoma. One who learns from every person.

Ben Zoma, who lived in the second century C.E., could have been a journalist. To “learn from every person” is why I got into this racket as a teenager. It’s what I’ve tried to do every day of these tumultuous past five years as editor-in-chief of the Forward.

To approach the world with curiosity. To ask big, hard, complicated questions to which we don’t know the answers. To cast the net of inquiry as wide as we can, follow the story where it takes us, and with humility and respect and empathy, learn from every person along the way.

Looking Forward

Editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren shares her weekly personal take on Jewish issues, journalism, politics, and more.

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This is my last Looking Forward column, though after a short break you’ll continue to get this newsletter on Fridays, with reflections on the news from other Forward journalists. I’m headed back from whence I came, The New York Times, deeply grateful for all who’ve taught me so much while here — Forward colleagues and contributors, Jewish thinkers and doers, seekers and activists, and, especially, you, dear readers.

I came to the Forward in 2019 to help reinvigorate this storied publication for the digital age. I’d barely started down my list of Jewish leaders to get coffee with when, six months later, a global pandemic shut down the world as we knew it.

As we hurtled from one intense, unprecedented news cycle to the next, I started sending little dispatches to help you ease into Shabbat. One Friday that spring I wrote about my amateur efforts at growing kale, another about a cool online photo project we were part of called UrbanArchive. Over time, these mini-reflections morphed into reported essays and we renamed the newsletter “Looking Forward.”

Writing it — and, especially, engaging with your responses — has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my career.

A few years ago, my friend and mentor Ethan Bronner, the Israel bureau chief for Bloomberg News, told me that I’d “perfected the genre of ‘The News & Me.’” I don’t think that’s actually a genre, but it has been the perfect way for me to practice what we call “Jewish journalism,” to connect my lived experience as a Jewish mother and wife and kaddish-sayer and soup-swapper and sukkah builder with the dizzying headlines of war and antisemitism and politics and polarization. I’ve tried to bring a kitchen-table perspective to some of the world’s big problems. To offer a bit of wisdom as I learn from every person.

The husband and twins were remarkably game. “Newsletter!” they’d fairly sing whenever we encountered some Interesting Jewish Happening that could make good copy. They are at the top of the list of people who teach me.

There is not enough space to list even a fraction of what I have learned from the incredible assemblage of impassioned people who make the Forward. Our staff and freelancers have shown me different ways to be Jewish and different ways to do journalism; they’ve made me a better boss, and a better friend. I know I’ll keep learning from them as a Forward reader (and donor!), as they keep asking “Vos hert ziilch” —that’s Yiddish for “Hey, what’s happening?” — across our fractured and fractious Jewish landscape.

I’ve learned resilience and grace from Rachel Goldberg-Polin, hope and hard work from Seba Abudaqa. I’ve learned history from Deborah Lipstadt, and from Rashid Khalidi. Alex Edelman made me laugh — and made me think. Jonathan Greenblatt made me mad — and made me think.

Then there are the rabbis. I remember when Abigail Pogrebin (an important contributor to the Forward both journalistically and philanthropically) was embarking on this series talking to 18 rabbis about God, she asked who “my rabbis” were — who I went to for Jewish advice or pastoral care. I had three back then: Benji Samuels, leader of the Modern Orthodox shul in which my parents raised me; Elliot Cosgrove, the Conservative scholar who officiated at my wedding; and Marc Katz, who runs the Reform shul where my kids had their “Zoom Mitzvah.”

They each answered Looking Forward queries over the years, along with a whole constellation of others.

Rabbi Sandra Lawson, who leads the Reconstructionist movement’s diversity initiatives, taught me how to mark Juneteenth in a Jewish way and how journalism can hurt even when it follows the rules. Rabbis Avi Shafran and Motti Seligson guided me to use the term “Haredi” instead of “ultra-Orthodox.” Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky showed me liturgy is not etched on tablets and Rabbi Brent Spodek taught me how to pray.

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl answered my call during the Texas synagogue hostage crisis even though she could not talk on the record. Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman told me the truth, in December 2023, when I asked how Israeli Jews on the left were absorbing the devastation in Gaza: “I’m ashamed at how my heart has shrunk.”

It was Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann of Mishkan, an alternative synagogue in Chicago, who reminded me of Ben Zoma’s adage after I shared news of my resignation. She was complimenting me, but what she said applies to our entire team’s journalism.

“You really take people seriously,’ Rabbi Lizzi said at a meeting of the Forward advisory board. “You don’t innately have a bias this way or that way. My experience of you has been really just wanting to understand what is happening and then report back on it — whether or not it’s what people want to hear.”

I could never have imagined, when I came to the Forward, the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023, and all that has happened since across the Middle East and our own country. I do feel I was in the right seat, leaning on my experience covering two prior wars in Gaza to lead our fair, broad-minded, nuanced Jewish coverage of these perilous events and times.

I know that some, or perhaps many, of you have been disappointed or frustrated or even outraged by some — or perhaps much — of that coverage. I am wiser for having learned from your disappointment and frustration.

As I prepare to leave the Forward, I’m struck by the fact that several of the most-read pieces we’ve published during my tenure revolve around the same issue: How to talk to people you disagree with.

In every Jewish space I’m in, this is the hot-button topic. And yet, these spaces are getting narrower and farther apart. Everyone seems to be yearning to talk across divides but nobody seems to be doing much of it.

The key is to approach the conversation with curiosity, to honestly try to understand why the person thinks what they think — rather than to try to show them how they’re wrong.

I think that’s what Ben Zoma was talking about.

The editor who helped this column thrive

Each week in this space, I thank “Adam Langer for editing” this newsletter. This is a woeful, radical understatement of my deep gratitude for Adam, who has been my trusted No. 2 since I arrived at the Forward — and grown into a true friend.

Adam and I are 180-degrees different in demeanor but 100% aligned in values.

He has taught me to raise questions in copy rather than jump in to fix it. He’s shown me how to make newsletter subject lines sing. He models working-parenthood and mentorship to new talent. He overcomes obstacles without even acknowledging them. He shows up every morning with a different Zoom background showcasing the work or life of a different artist. He sees the humor in everything.

Adam is loyal, insightful and wise. Thank you for … everything.

The editor who will see the Forward… forward

Julie Moos, who joined us last year as managing editor for audience, will be stepping in as interim editor-in-chief while Rachel Fishman-Feddersen, our CEO/publisher, leads a national search for my successor.

Julie embodies Ben Zoma’s adage about wisdom. She is a longtime leader in strategic thinking about journalism that meets audience needs.

She is also a great lover of lighthouses and bookstores. I know she will take the Forward from strength to strength.

Email [email protected].

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