Free newspapers, such as the American Jewish World, play a vital role in our society. Factual reporting not only offers the members of the press a great opportunity, but also an equally great responsibility in contributing to our national strength and vitality.
With every good wish for many more years of responsible service to your readers,
John F. Kennedy (from a telegram to AJW Editor and Publisher L.H. Frisch, Sept. 4, 1962)
With our Centennial Special Edition this week, we celebrate 100 years of bringing the news to the Jewish community of Minnesota. The American Jewish World, an independently published periodical throughout its history, owes its longevity to the support of our subscribers and advertisers. Of course, the organized Jewish community forms the foundation of this enterprise. So, let’s start here with some acknowledgements.
First, we are grateful to Sholom and the Sholom Foundation, our partners in this special edition. If you have received this issue of the newspaper and are not an AJW subscriber, likely you have donated to the Sholom Foundation, or have a loved one residing in one of Sholom’s facilities in St. Louis Park or St. Paul. We hope that everyone reads the story of Sholom’s past, present and future plans, which appears on Page 7B of our print edition.
I also want to acknowledge the “AJW Centennial Supporters,” who are listed on Page 10. These loyal Jewish World readers, and local businesses, responded to our solicitation for tangible support (“double chai” in U.S dollars) of this celebration in print.
And Steven Greenberg, one of my partners in Minnesota Jewish Media, LLC, the parent company of the AJW, has made a generous offer of 25 free subscriptions to readers of this edition (see ad on Page 7B). If you are not a current AJW subscriber (or listed in our database) and would like to read this newspaper on a regular basis, contact Lori, the AJW office manager, at 952-259-5237, or via e-mail at: business@ajwnews.com. The free subscriptions will be awarded to the first 25 individuals who respond to Steven’s offer — no strings attached.
We have been advertising this Centennial Special Edition for several months, and we are gratified by the outpouring of support from the Jewish community. You will find congratulatory ads in this issue from 10 local congregations, the federations, and many Jewish schools and organizations. Also, we have dozens of ads from local businesses, our valued advertising clients; please patronize them and let them know that you saw their ad in the American Jewish World.
This edition has a local Jewish history theme, with many articles and reminiscences in the “B” section. Judith Brin Ingber contributes a memoir about the growth of Jewish cultural arts. Arthur Himmelman writes about a little known Carleton College professor, Paul Wellstone, whom he introduced to DFL machers Sam and Sylvia Kaplan; which led to the biggest upset in Minnesota political history, in the 1990 Senate race. I wrote a brief article about two women who worked for the AJW in the 1950s. And there’s more.
“A newspaper is a unique enterprise,” stated the Jewish World editorial in the Sept. 28, 1962 edition, which celebrated Rosh Hashana and the 50th anniversary of the newspaper’s publication. “It is privately owned and managed, and its proprietor must rise or fall by those inexorable pressures of economics we know so well; yet it is, also, by the nature of its function and by the desire of its publisher, a public utility in the most significant sense of that term. It is as a public utility that the American Jewish World has sought to live, to serve, to make its place in the community.”
The partners of Minnesota Jewish Media, LLC, and the editors and staff of the AJW, thank everyone who contributed to this celebration of our 100th anniversary of publication. We dedicate this Centennial Special Edition to the visionary Dr. Samuel N. Deinard, founder of the Jewish Weekly, which was reborn as the American Jewish World.
We look forward to many years of mutually beneficial relationships with everyone in the Jewish community of Minnesota, and the larger community.
— Mordecai Specktor / editor [at] ajwnews.com
(American Jewish World, 7.20.12)
