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June 30, 2000/27 Sivan 5760, Vol. 52, No.43
Liberal columnist named Forward editor
JULIE WIENER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - The new editor of the Forward newspaper said the paper's ideology is likely to change under his stewardship.
"I've been reading in the papers that Seth Lipsky is a conservative," said J.J. Goldberg, referring to the controversial former editor of American Jewry's most famous newspaper, at a June 23 news conference. "Most of my friends say I'm pretty liberal. I'll be writing the editorials, so you're probably going to see a difference."
Lipsky, who considered the militant founder of Revisionist Zionism, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, to be a personal hero, was forced out in May after a decade as the English-language paper's editor, due to long-standing ideological differences between him and the left-leaning Forward Association, which publishes the paper.
Under Lipsky's reign, the paper earned a reputation for its extensive arts coverage and aggressive news reporting. In the Forward's pages, the Jewish establishment came under constant criticism for what Lipsky saw as its liberal ideology and clandestine operations.
Goldberg, 50, the author of "Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment" and a former managing editor at both the Forward and the New York Jewish Week, said he wants to make the weekly newspaper one that chronicles "the lives of ordinary people" and speaks "in a voice that gives at least everyone the benefit of the doubt."
Goldberg, an alumnus of the labor Zionist Habonim-Dror youth movement and a formermember of a kibbutz, said he would bring a different political outlook.
Asked if the tone of the Forward would be sensationalist under his editorship, Goldberg, 50, said, "I want to tell the truth, but I don't want to humiliate anyone." He added that the press should "call the powerful to account," let readers know how communal dollars are being spent and "tell it straight," but said he does not want to "call names."
Goldberg, whose columns have appeared in Jewish newspapers across the United States, including Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, said he hopes to boost popular awareness of the Forward and turn it into a publication that is "about the actions of the powerful and the lives of the ordinary."
Founded by Abraham Cahan in 1897, the Yiddish Forward at one time had a daily circulation of 250,000. The paper's current circulation is below 30,000 and it has suffered annual losses of approximately $2 million. However, officials with the Forward Association said that advertising revenues have gradually been increasing.
Lipsky's departure spurred philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, a joint owner of the Forward, to sell his share in the paper to the Forward Association. Sam Norich, general manager of the association, said the sale is expected, but that Steinhardt will likely continue to serve as vice chairman.
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