"You have no idea how many once-stellar names in American Jewish leadership have left no, or virtually no, trace"

Took over: Intermountain Jewish News in Denver, Colorado

Position: Editor and publisher

Succeeded: Father and mother, Max and Miriam Goldberg

Year: 2017

Before I took over

My father worked at the IJN, which services the breadth of the Jewish community, politically, religiously, and culturally, since 1943. He passed away in 1972 and left the newspaper to my mother. I was learning in yeshivah in Israel, and from there, I joined the IJN on a regular basis, writing a weekly column called “The View from Jerusalem.” I had experience with newspaper writing and publishing from high school and college. In 1983, after teaching in yeshivos and The Hebrew University, I moved back to Denver and worked alongside my mom as a writer. Our talented managing editor, Doris Sky, passed away suddenly in 1990, and I took on some editorial responsibilities. I had learned a lot of the editorial side from my dad, and over the next decade, I was gradually trained by my mother in the business side. I started taking on more publisher’s responsibilities like advertising and management. Today I do that as well as editorial responsibility.

The biggest challenge I faced right away

Figuring out how to maintain a regular program of Torah study and research while taking on an absorbing newspaper job. At the newspaper itself, the big challenge was to accustom the community to a more forceful editorial page that advocated for greater Jewish communal expenditures on day school education, to ensure Jewish continuity. The basic premise of my argument was that the UJA was sending funds to cover a large portion of Israel’s budget, and we argued that for American Jewry’s self-preservation the funds should be redirected to day schools. To my regret, the position was not received, and as I ironically and bitterly put it now, I won all the arguments — because there is virtually no one left to argue with. In most cases, the children of that older generation intermarried, didn’t marry, didn’t have children, or fell away due to ignorance of Torah — they’ve disappeared. You have no idea how many once-stellar names in American Jewish leadership have left no, or virtually no, trace.