The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international
news agency and
wire 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 is
world Jewry's oldest and most widely-read wire service.
History
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency was founded in
The Hague, Netherlands, as the first Jewish
news agency and
wire service, then known as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau on February 6, 1917, by 25-year old
Jacob 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, the
Gestapo (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 British
intelligence serviceMI6.[15] ONA provided
press credentials to British spies, and planted fake news stories in US newspapers.[15]Meyer Levin was a
war 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 in
Washington, 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 with
journalistic detachment.[8]
In 2015, the news service merged with Jewish education website MyJewishLearning to create
70 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]
Staff
Landau, JTA's original publisher, later founded The Palestine Bulletin, an English-language broadsheet published in
Mandatory Palestine in 1925. The Palestine Bulletin eventually became
The Jerusalem Post.[20]
Journalist
Daniel 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 organization
Chalkbeat was named JTA's editor-in-chief. Cramer replaced Andy Silow-Carroll, who took the same post at New York Jewish Week in mid-2019 after three years at the helm.[31]
Editorial policy
The JTA is a
not-for-profit corporation governed by an independent board of directors. It claims no allegiance to any specific branch of
Judaism or political viewpoint. "We respect 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", wrote JTA editor-in-chief and CEO and publisher Ami Eden. He gave as an example of the JTA's coverage of the
Mavi Marmara activist ship.[32] JTA is officially apolitical and non-denominational in its coverage of Judaism and Jewish-related topics.[18]
JTA is an affiliate of
70 Faces Media, a not-for-profit American media company.[34][19] Other sites under the 70 Faces Media company include Kveller, Alma, and Nosher.[35]
In 1933,
Nobel Prize winner
Albert 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 objectively informed about the lot of the Jews all countries: "in a graphic and objective manner, and in so doing it has performed an important service ..."[45]
In 2021, JTA received ten
Simon Rockower Awards, and 16 Rockower Awards in 2022, including eight first places.[47][48] In 2023, the magazine won 20 Rockower Awards.[49]