With this edition of the Jewish World, we are announcing The American Jewish World Future Project, a new initiative to expand the reach of the newspaper. Specifically, we will be offering free one-year subscriptions to the newspaper to Minnesota Jews ages 18-35.
We are calling this the American Jewish World Future Project, an effort to engage with young Jews in Minnesota, and to invigorate a journalistic pillar of our Jewish community. We date the newspaper to 1912, and we hope to carry on this proud tradition for generations to come, with the help of our vibrant and resourceful community.
The expense of the free subscriptions will be underwritten by a generous contribution from Harvey Feldman, a successful Minneapolis businessman and philanthropist. We are grateful for his interest in seeing the Jewish World thrive and for his material contribution to the AJW Future Project.
Along with the expanded subscriber base, we will use a portion of the Feldman grant to subsidize the cost of expanded coverage that will be of interest to our new readers. We’ll be surveying young readers about what topics they would like to see covered in the newspaper. Do they want to read about local subjects, or about Israel and the global Jewish world? Do they want to read about secular or religious subjects?
Hopefully, we also will find some talented young writers to convey their viewpoints to our readers of all ages. Consider this a call for contributions from aspiring Jewish journalists — bylines and payments are part of the deal.
In the weeks to come, we will be contacting local synagogues, Jewish agencies and organizations in an effort to identify those young Jews who would like to become Jewish World readers and contributors. Our readers should feel free to spread the word of the Future Project to their children and grandchildren. We know that young people get their news via mobile phone apps and the internet; but perhaps they also will enjoy communing with the medium of print. (For one thing, nobody can glean your consumer preferences and stalk you online, if you’re reading a newspaper.)
As this initiative rolls out we expect that the best results will come from empowering a group to lead the way on the Future Project.
The AJW Future Project is coordinated by Adrian Glass-Moore, our assistant editor. He can be reached at 952-259-5239, or email: community [at] ajwnews [dot] com.
Mordecai Specktor
editor [at] ajwnews [dot] com
(American Jewish World, 5.4.18)
