 | |
 Cover of the print magazine, dated August 2025 | |
| Editor | Alana Newhouse |
|---|---|
| Categories | Jewish history,culture,politics |
| Frequency | Monthly (print) |
| Publisher | Nextbook |
| First issue | June 2009; 16 years ago (2009-06) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Website | tabletmag |
| ISSN | 1551-2940 |
Tablet is an American magazine focused on Jewish news and culture, featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, fiction, and essays.[1][2] It was founded in 2009 by editor-in-chiefAlana Newhouse and is supported by theNextbook foundation. Tablet’s website, print edition, and logo were all designed byPentagram. Tablet has wonNational Magazine Awards, including one for General Excellence.
The magazine has been described as conservative or centre-right by Jewish organizations,[3][4][5] though they regularly criticize the far-right.[6][7]
Tablet was founded as aweb magazine in June 2009 byAlana Newhouse inNew York, former culture editor atThe Forward, with the support of theNextbook foundation as a rebranded and news-focused version of the Jewishliterary journalNextbook. In the three years after its founding,New York Magazine describedTablet as a "must-read for young politically and culturally engaged Jews".[8][9][10] Its reporting has largely focused on Jewish news and culture.[9][11]Tablet styled itself as the first "multimedia Jewish journalistic enterprise" and said it also reports onpolitics andreligion and hostspodcasts.[12]Tablet has received twoNational Magazine Awards in 2010 and 2011,[13][14] one for Vox Tablet and one for its blog. The magazine won aRockower Award in 2013 and another in 2022.[15][16]
It was noted by theThe New York Observer in September 2014 that the magazine had become moreright-wing and supportive of theIsraeli government after2014 Gaza war.[5] Critics of the magazine criticized it in 2022, saying it published content critical oftransgender health care,COVID-19 vaccines, and hired several editors who supported policies of presidentDonald Trump.[2] ScholarSteven Windmueller saidTablet is one of the publications that adheres to "conservative Jewish political thought".[17]
In February 2015,Tablet tested a monetization method in which viewers could read articles for free but were required to pay to comment on them. Commenting cost $2 per day, $18 per month, or $180 per year.[18][19] In May 2025,Tablet launched a new monthly print edition of the magazine, reportedly edited byLorin Stein ofThe Paris Review.[20] The print magazine has ads located on the back cover. The ads were said byThe Nation to promote products ofPeter Thiel,Bari Weiss and newsletterPirate Wires byMike Solana.[21]
In July 2012,Tablet contributorMichael C. Moynihan broke the story on journalistJonah Lehrer's fabrication ofBob Dylan quotes in his bookImagine.[22][23][24]Tablet's publication of the article ultimately led to Lehrer's resignation fromThe New Yorker and publisherHoughton Mifflin Harcourt's recall ofImagine and his second bookHow We Decide.[25][26] Moynihan's investigation into Lehrer and the circumstances surrounding the publication of the article later became subject ofJon Ronson'sSo You've Been Publicly Shamed.[27][28]
In August 2018, whileJulia Salazar was campaigning for election to theNew York State Senate,Tablet published an article questioning Salazar's claims that she was Jewish and an immigrant.Jewish Currents published an interview in which Salazar responded to theTablet piece.[29]
After thePittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018, Newhouse and all six members of the magazine's editorial staff traveled toPittsburgh to report on the shooting and its aftermath. Newhouse toldThe New York Times that "large-picture stories [and] the big-picture trends on right-wingradicalization" could be "left for think pieces for later", saying thatTablet staff were "focused on pieces where we could root them in the stories of actual human beings affected by this one way or the other." The magazine's coverage included reporting on the funerals of people killed in the shooting, and a special edition of its podcastUnorthodox.[9]
In December 2018,Tablet published an article about theWomen's March in Washington, D.C., afterDonald Trump was elected president. It argued that the march's leaders had excluded Jewish women from leadership positions and usedantisemitic language since the organization began in 2016. It especially critiqued connections toLouis Farrakhan. The article came after months of growing pressure on the group, including local chapters issuing critiques and theNational Organization for Women ending financial support (though still encouraging members to attend Women's March events).[30][31][32] The organizers spoke against Farrakhan's most extreme statements, issued an apology, and made organizational changes to better include Jews in leadership. But the leadership did not generally condemn Farrakhan, which led to enduring backlash.[33][34]
In April 2021,Tablet published an article byHeritage Foundation researcherJay P. Greene,Do No Harm director Ian Kingsbury, and Albert Cheng, an assistant professor in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, about a survey that found that, in contrast to the consensus that education reduces antisemitism, more highly educated people may be more antisemitic. The survey was based on the concept of adouble standard, and asked questions of respondents while showing them one of two examples, where only one was related to Judaism; for example, one question asked whether public gatherings during theCOVID-19 pandemic "posed a threat to public health and should have been prevented" and provided eitherBlack Lives Matter protests orOrthodox Jewish funerals as examples. The researchers asserted inTablet that respondents to the questions should have answered similarly regardless of the examples given, and that respondents' tendencies to apply principles more harshly to Jews than non-Jews indicated antisemitism.[35]
Tablet'seditor-in-chief isAlana Newhouse.[9] Her husbandDavid Samuels is literary editor.[47] Liel Leibovitz iseditor-at-large, andLee Smith is a contributor.[48]
Sasha Senderovich andShaul Magid have both become critical ofTablet after initially contributing work to it. Senderovich left the magazine after a series of 2017 articles in which Leibovitz defended Trump adviserSebastian Gorka, while Magid left in 2021 after feeling that his internal criticism of conservative content was ineffective.[48]
Tablet's stable of contributors and contributing editors includes journalistsMatti Friedman,[49]Wesley Yang,[50] and Michael C. Moynihan,[25] fiction writersHoward Jacobson,[51]Dara Horn,[52]David Bezmozgis,[53]Ayelet Tsabari,[54]Etgar Keret,[55] andBen Marcus,[56] academicsAnthony Grafton,[57]Elisa New,[58]Bernard-Henri Lévy,[59]Edward Luttwak,[60]Walter Russell Mead,[61]Norman Doidge,[62]Jacob Soll,[63]Michael Lind,[64]Natalie Zemon Davis,[65] andMaxim D. Shrayer,[66][67] novelistsMarc Weitzmann,[68] andKinky Friedman,[69] the criticsMarco Roth,[70] andJ. Hoberman,[71] and cartoonistJules Feiffer.[72]
In 2017,Tablet hired award-winning journalist Gretchen Rachel Hammond, who was fired from her reporting duties at theWindy City Times, a Chicago LGBT newspaper, after Hammond broke the story that three Jewish women were asked to leave theChicago Dyke March for carrying rainbow flags emblazoned withJewish stars.[73]
In 2015,Tablet launchedUnorthodox, a podcast about Jewish life and culture, hosted by Stephanie Butnick,Liel Leibovitz, and Mark Oppenheimer, who later left the show to be replaced byJoshua Malina. The podcast features a weekly roundup of the "News of the Jews," an interview with a "Jew of the Week," and an interview with a "Gentile of the Week."[74][75] The podcast has been downloaded over six million times and produces a live show that has performed across the United States.[76][77] It no longer produces new episodes.
Tablet Studios has published a range of podcasts, includingRadioactive, about antisemitic radio priestCharles Coughlin,[78]Gatecrashers, about the history of Jews in theIvy League (seeSeth Low Junior College,[79] andTake One, a daily podcast in which the host and a guest discuss a page ofTalmud.[80] From 2014 to 2022,Tablet partnered with the podcastIsrael Story on its first six seasons.[81][82]
Until the summer of 2016, Tablet also hosted the acclaimed Vox Tablet, a National Magazine Award-winning podcast that launched in 2005 under the brief of then editor Blake Eskin. It was previously known as the Nextbook podcast. A weekly show, it included interviews with cultural luminaries including Michael Chabon, Norman Mailer, Aline Kominsky Crumb, Fyvush Finkel, and others. It also featured reported stories from around the globe by Daniel Estrin, Gregory Warner, and other seasoned journalists and was produced by Julie Subrin and hosted by Sara Ivry.[citation needed]
In December 2023, theUSC Shoah Foundation announced its partnership withTablet Studios, to launch a collection of audio and video testimonies from the2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.[83][84]
In 2010,Tablet published the first of its "Greatest" lists: the "100 Greatest Jewish Songs."[85][86] In 2011,Tablet published the "100 Greatest Jewish Films," which awarded its top spot toE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.[87][88] In 2013,Tablet published its list of "101 Great Jewish Books," including authors such asBetty Friedan,Sholem Aleichem,Karl Marx andArt Spiegelman.[89][90]
In 2018,Tablet published the "100 Most Jewish Foods," which spawned a book[91][92] as well as a puzzle[93] of the same title. Also in 2018, the magazine began a line of books published withArtisan. These includeThe Newish Jewish Encyclopedia[94] and a PassoverHaggadah with artwork byShai Azoulay.[95]
 | This"criticism" or "controversy" sectionmay compromise the article'sneutrality. Please helpintegrate negative information into other sections or removeundue focus on minor aspects throughdiscussion on thetalk page.(September 2025) |
In 2011,Tablet announced thatJeffrey Goldberg would move his blog from the website ofThe Atlantic toTablet.[96] Goldberg corroborated the announcement in June 2011,[97] but never took this action and continued to publish inThe Atlantic. In May 2016, afterTablet literary editor David Samuels published a profile of Obama advisorBen Rhodes inThe New York Times Magazine that called Goldberg a "handpicked Beltway insider" who helped to "retail" the arguments of theObama administration in support of theIran deal, Goldberg attributed the negative characterization to a "longtime personal grudge" held by Samuels as a result of Goldberg's decision not to move toTablet.[47]
In 2012,Tablet published a review ofBreaking Bad by Anna Breslaw in which Breslaw criticizedHolocaust survivors, including those in her family, as "villains masquerading as victims who, solely by virtue of surviving (very likely by any means necessary), felt that they had earned the right to be heroes [...] conniving, indestructible, taking and taking." Jeffrey Goldberg observed inThe Atlantic thatTablet had "brought togetherCommentary'sJohn Podhoretz andThe Nation'sKatha Pollitt [...] by publishing a vicious attack on Holocaust survivors", and called for the magazine to publish an apology to Holocaust survivors.[98] The magazine did apologize for publishing Breslaw's piece. InIn These Times, staff writer Lindsay Beyerstein called the article "the worst thing that Tablet has ever published" and "a disgrace on every level".[99]
In October 2017,Tablet published an article by Mark Oppenheimer titled "The Specifically Jewish Perviness of Harvey Weinstein".[100] The article argued thatHarvey Weinstein's sexual assaults were distinctively Jewish and was shared favorably byDavid Duke and neo-NaziRichard Spencer. Oppenheimer apologized for the piece, which was described inJewish left-leaning quarterly magazineJewish Currents as both supporting "an antisemitic stereotype" and avoiding discussion of "the rampant misogyny that exists in both the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds".[101]
On September 29, 2022, theAssociation for Jewish Studies (AJS) "paused" a relationship withTablet that had enabled the magazine to place advertisements through AJS. The pause came in response to complaints by AJS members about the content published byTablet;Jewish Currents reported that the critiques centered around articles published inTablet within the past five years.Jewish Currents also noted in an email newsletter that severalTablet contributors areTrump supporters and asserted that "much of the magazine's content is focused on decrying liberal 'wokeness'", arguing that whileTablet initially "gained a reputation for publishing high-quality arts and culture content", a conservative editorial line became more pronounced during thefirst presidency of Donald Trump.[48]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
