TheJewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an internationalnews agency andwire service that primarily covers Judaism- and Jewish-related topics and news. Described as the "Associated Press of the Jewish media", JTA serves Jewish and non-Jewish newspapers and press around the world as a syndication partner. Founded in 1917, it isworld Jewry's oldest and most widely-read wire service.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency was founded inThe Hague, Netherlands, as the first Jewishnews agency andwire service, then known as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau on February 6, 1917, by 25-year oldJacob Landau.[2][3] Its mandate was to collect and disseminate news affecting the Jewish communities around the world,[4][5][6][7] especially from the European World War I fronts.[8][9] In 1919, it moved to London, under its current name.[6][10][11]
In 1922, the JTA moved its global headquarters to New York City.[6] By 1925, over 400 newspapers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, subscribed to the JTA.[12]
In November 1937, theGestapo (the secret police of Nazi Germany) closed JTA's Berlin bureau, charging it with "endangering public safety and order."[13]
In 1940, the JTA spawned the Overseas News Agency (ONA).[14] Although designed to appear like a normal news agency, it was in fact secretly funded by the Britishintelligence serviceMI6.[15] ONA providedpress credentials to British spies, and planted fake news stories in US newspapers.[15]Meyer Levin was awar correspondent in Europe during World War II, representing the Overseas News Agency and the JTA.[16][17]
Its cable service improved the quality and range of Jewish periodicals.[8][12] Today, it has correspondents inWashington, DC,Jerusalem, Moscow, and 30 other cities in North and South America, Israel, Europe, Africa, and Australia. The JTA is committed to covering news of interest to the Jewish community withjournalistic detachment.[8]
In 2015, the news service merged with Jewish education website MyJewishLearning to create70 Faces Media, the largest Jewish media group in North America. MyJewishLearning was founded in 2003 and hosted more than 5,000 articles about Jewish life history, culture, and education.[19][18]
Landau, JTA's original publisher, later foundedThe Palestine Bulletin, an English-language broadsheet published inMandatory Palestine in 1925.The Palestine Bulletin eventually becameThe Jerusalem Post.[20]
JournalistDaniel Schorr began his career as an assistant news editor for the JTA from 1934 to 1941.[21][22][23]
Boris Smolar joined the JTA in 1924, and retired as its editor-in chief in 1967.[30]
In January 2020, Philissa Cramer, co-founder and editor-at-large of nonprofit news organizationChalkbeat was named JTA's editor-in-chief. Cramer replaced Andy Silow-Carroll, who took the same post atNew York Jewish Week in mid-2019 after three years at the helm.[31]
The JTA is anot-for-profit corporation governed by an independent board of directors. It is apolitical and non-denominational in its coverage of Judaism and Jewish-related topics. According to editor-in-chief and CEO and publisher Ami Eden, JTA "respects the many Jewish and Israel advocacy organizations out there, but JTA has a different mission: to provide readers and clients with balanced and dependable reporting". He cited JTA's coverage of theMavi Marmara activist ship.[32][18] JTA is an affiliate of70 Faces Media, a not-for-profit American media company.[19]
JTA is considered the "Associated Press of Jewish media". JTA's main competitor is the more conservativeJewish News Syndicate, launched in 2011.[33] JTA is stillworld Jewry's oldest and most widely-read wire service.[18] According to journalist and author Stephen Schwartz, JTA is "a news service respected for its professionalism and independence.[34]
In 1933,Nobel Prize winnerAlbert Einstein said in a speech at a dinner in his honor that the JTA was "very close to my heart", and that the JTA was keeping the public informed about the lot of the Jews in all countries: "in a graphic and objective manner, and in so doing it has performed an important service ..."[35]
In 2021, JTA received tenSimon Rockower Awards, and 16 Rockower Awards in 2022, including eight first places.[46][47] In 2023, the magazine won 20 Rockower Awards.[48]
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