Jewish Observer and Middle East Review
The Jewish Observer and Middle East Review was founded in 1952, replacing the Zionist Review as the official publication of the Zionist Federation of Britain.[1] The journal ceased publication in 1977 and was eventually replaced by the resurrection of the Zionist Review in 1982.
People
Editorial staff
- Jon Kimche edited the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review from 1952 to 1967.[2] In March 1967, Kimche's publishers, the board of directors of the Zionist Review dismissed him after a dispute in which he accused their major stockholder, the Zionist Federation of Britain of censorship of material in the magazine. The Zionist Federation was the principal stockholder in the Zionist Review, publisher of the Observer. In an open letter to Kimche, The board denied that the dispute was prompted by an intervention some days earlier by Israel's Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who had objected to an article criticising Israel's Minister of Justice Yaacov Shapiro. The board charged Kimche with ignoring instructions from the editorial committee not to print an article on unemployment in Israel, which the committee considered misleading.[3][4]
- Emanuel Litvinoff (Writer, born 5 May 1915; died 24 September 2011) According to an obituary in the Guardian: 'To make ends meet, Emanuel took a job on the Zionist Review (although he was not a Zionist), and became deputy editor on the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review.'[5]
- Geoffrey Paul (Assistant Editor) According to David Cesarani 'He found work in the public relations department of the Jewish Agency, under Dr Selig Brodetsky and Dr Schneier Levenberg, and later with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. For three years he was assistant editor of the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, edited by Jon Kimche. In 1958, William Frankel invited him to join the Jewish Chronicle. Beginning as a sub-editor on the foreign news desk, he was subsequently appointed the Israel correspondent and was later sent to New York to cover the USA.'[6]
- Jan Shure, Deputy Editor. According to Shure: 'Around three decades ago, I was deputy editor at a small, now defunct, UK publication called the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review.'[7] This suggests she worked there around the mide 1970s in the last few years of the publication of the journal, which ceased publication in 1977. She also noted that:
- In common with the JC, it devoted a great number of column inches to the issue of Palestinian propaganda on UK campuses. Apart from news stories in both publications reporting the avalanche of Arab propaganda on campus, and a small, heroic number of individual voices calling for the Jewish community to do more to help students combat it, the Jewish establishment failed to step up — with human resources, educational support, PR or advertising campaigns or cash — to counter the Palestinian narrative being imparted to students across British universities.[7]
- Elkana Galli According to an Obituary: 'By the late 1950s,... Elkana Galli had returned to Europe, establishing a French edition of the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review. In the mid-sixties, he was Deputy Editor in London of the French and German editions of l'Observateur du Moyen Orient et de l'Africa, and Der Nahe Osten. He later published multi-language editions of a very intelligence-oriented newsletter on the Middle East, from Israel. Little wonder, then, that his long association with the Israeli leadership led him to become Director of Information Communications and Foreign Relations for Israel Aircraft Industries, for many years the largest industrial enterprise in the Middle East.[8]
Writers and journalists
- Paul Kohn 'In 1951 he joined the army and after service in a combat unit found himself eventually in the IDF Spokesman's Office beginning a long career in journalism which continued when he joined The Jerusalem Post in 1954 as a reporter in the Tel Aviv office.... After a few years as a Jewish Agency emissary in London, he returned to the Post as a sports journalist and stayed there until his retirement. Other journalistic posts were as an Associated Press stringer and writer for the now defunct Jewish Observer and Middle East Review in London.[9]
Notes
- ↑ Last Issue of “Zionist Review” of Britain Appears Today, JTA, 1 February 1952.
- ↑ Joseph Finklestone, SCOOPING THE MIDDLE EAST; Obituary: Jon Kimche, Guardian, 19 March 1994.
- ↑ Editor of London ‘Jewish Observer’ Dismissed by Zionist Federation, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 13 March 1967.
- ↑ For further details see the page on Jon Kimche
- ↑ Judith Burnley Emanuel Litvinoff obituary: Poet and novelist, born in the East End, who railed against the fate of the Jews in his work The Guardian, Monday 26 September 2011 18.24 BST
- ↑ David Cesarani 'The Jewish press in a divided community: Geoffrey Paul, 1977–1990' pp. 236-247 Chapter 9 in The “Jewish Chronicle” and Anglo-Jewry, 1841–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Jan Shure 'We could have dealt with campus hate long ago: We are reaping the whirlwind of our past inability to counter anti-Jewish propaganda in universities, The JC.com February 12, 2009.
- ↑ GRC 'Elkana Galli', Defense & Foreign Affairs' Strategic Policy, September 2012 Pg. 18.
- ↑ Ian White 'Opening Pandora's box' Jerusalem Post, March 4, 2011 Friday Pg. 28.
