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What *is* JTA?

It occurs to me now that I linked JTA this morning, and didn’t bother to explain what it is. And since I’d never heard of it myself until a few months ago, when a woman called to interview me for a story they were doing about “new Jewish media”… it’s totally possible you don’t know what JTA is either. Which would be too bad, because they’re a huge resource. But honestly they’ve done an awful job of marketing themselves for new technology. Which is a shame.

In case you’re interested… a little history (from the website)

In 1917, during the waning days of World War I, a 25-year-old journalist named Jacob Landau had a vision. The war had brought home the realization that what happens in our country affects more than just its own people – that the nation's fate is bound up with the fate of surrounding nations. At the same time, the continuing mass migration of Jews to the New World meant that more and more families were now separated by oceans. Jews in one part of the world had a personal interest in what was happening halfway around the globe. And the Jewish People as a whole had an increasing stake in the geopolitical developments transforming much of the Western world.

Landau realized that world Jewry needed a mechanism for transmitting vital information about what was happening to Jewish communities in various parts of the world. The Jewish People needed its own reliable source of information, so that it could keep its leaders informed about important developments of the day and, when necessary, motivate the community to action. And so, Landau founded the Jewish Correspondence Bureau, later renamed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. It was, in fact, the first news agency that not only gathered but also disseminated news in every part of the world.

So basically, JTA was, for many years, a wire service like the Associated Press (for Jews). But now, in the new age of the internets, it has become a website (or you can get it via email) offering up-to-the-minute Jewish news from all over. They claim “no allegiance to any specific branch of Judaism or political viewpoint.”

Worth a bookmark!

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