The Forward won 43 Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism at the 41st American Jewish Press Association’s annual ceremony for work published in 2021. Photo by Laura Adkins

This post is a news release from the Forward’s communications department. Read past announcements here.

The Forward won 43 Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism at the 41st American Jewish Press Association’s annual ceremony for work published in 2021.

This is a new record for the Forward, following last year’s 34 wins.

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The awards — 12 first places, 17 second places and 14 honorable mentions, with sweeps in several categories — were announced on June 27 during the AJPA annual conference in Atlanta after two years of virtual ceremonies because of the pandemic.

Sometimes referred to as the “Jewish Pulitzers,” the awards were created in 1979 by the Rockower family to honor Simon Rockower and his deep love for Jewish journalism.

In two of the contest’s new categories, Writing about Antisemitism and Writing About Climate Change/Environmentalism, the Forward took three awards: “Antisemitism rises among Hispanic Miami’s right wing” by Jordan Levin (second place), a pair of columns by our opinion editor, Laura E. Adkins (honorable mention): “How to lie with statistics, antisemitism edition,” and “Our hate crime reporting system is broken,” as well as “Climate change tops agenda in Hazon-Pearlstone merger” by Sharon Rosen Leib (honorable mention).

Here is a list of our first-place wins:

The Boris Smolar Award for Excellence in Enterprise or Investigative Reporting

• First Place: “How many monuments honor fascists, Nazis and murderers of Jews? You’ll be shocked” by Lev Golinkin

Excellence in Deadline/Breaking News Reporting

• First Place: “Reform rabbinic giant disciplined for inappropriate relationships now accused of ‘sexually predatory behavior’” by Hannah Dreyfus

Excellence in Personal Essay

• First Place: “‘I’ll have what he’s having’: Told he had little time left, my rabbi-dad wanted a last meal at Katz’s deli” by Avi Dresner

Excellence in Feature Writing

• First Place: “An oral history of the most epic Jewish summer camp prank ever” by Louis Keene

Journalistic Excellence in Covering Zionism, Aliyah and Israel

• First Place: “They lost pregnancies or infants. Now, Israeli parents want access to burials that have long been secret” by Michele Chabin

Excellence in Writing About Women

• First Place: “My abortion story — because it’s true and we should not be afraid to talk about it” by Jodi Rudoren

Excellence in Interfaith Relations Reporting

• First Place: “How one powerful song helped to heal ‘Crown Heights’” by Jeremy Kagan

Excellence in Writing About Sports

• First Place: ‘It’s a bad time to be great’: An oral history of Yeshiva University’s historic 36-game win streak” by Louis Keene

Excellence in Writing About Seniors

• First Place: “‘I’ll have what he’s having’: Told he had little time left, my rabbi-dad wanted a last meal at Katz’s deli” by Avi Dresner

Excellence in Business Reporting — Trends

• First Place: “At Google, Jewish employees battling for influence clash over Israel” by Louis Keene

General Excellence — Best Freelancer

• First Place: “A Boston Jewish leader earns high praise amid lawsuits and allegations of a ‘toxic culture,’” “Facing illness or death? Call Ron Hoffman, ‘the hippie ALS guy,’” “From Twisted Sister to the pulpit, a deaf rabbi finds his place in ‘a society not set up for you’” by Linda Matchan, New York, NY

Award for Excellence in Arts — Review/Criticism (movie, theater, television, books, music, etc.)

• First Place: “A Jewish prisoner. An SS Officer. A forbidden relationship. An absolutely stunning documentary” by Simi Horowitz, New York, NY

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.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

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

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