Josh Nathan-Kazis reports on Jill Abramson’s promotion to NYT executive editor in the Forward:
Today, the Times is unabashed about the Jewishness of many of its most high-profile staffers and executives. But that was not always so. For the better part of a century, the Times did all it could to obscure its significance as a paper owned by Jews, one based in a world center of Jewish life, and written and edited by many Jews.
I don’t think this is true, actually. As a proud Jew, I seek a description of the centrality of Jews to the rise of modern American journalism. I came into journalism when the city desk editor had a bottle in the drawer, and then he didn’t; and SYJ’s were blamed– Serious Young Journalists. The culture of the legal profession was also changed by meritocratic Jews. Wall Street trading, too. Corporate culture as well. American culture was changed generally, and I insist we young Jews were the straw that stirred the drink. Politics?! Heck yes. And my non-Jewish wife worshiped Freud for helping her discover her psyche. Credit where it’s due. The Jewish Century, as Slezkine says. Oh I guess we’ll talk about it when it’s over.
