Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Independent Chicago Jewish Star Newspaper Closes

(JTA) — The Chicago Jewish Star, an independent family-run newspaper, has published its final edition.

The for-profit biweekly, which launched in February 1991, shut down Friday due to the industrywide decline in advertising, its owners said.

Douglas Wertheimer, who served as editor, and his wife, Gila, the associate and literary editor, owned the paper. Their son, Aaron, was the assistant editor.

The paper, which was based in Skokie, Illinois, won awards in city and state journalism competitions.

It first appeared as The Jewish Star of Alberta, Canada, which published Calgary and Edmonton editions from 1980 to 1990.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

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.