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| Diversifying Jewish news in Germany
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Juedische Zeitung newsroom
Photo: Arkadiy Shafirov / Werner Media
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The launch of a new Jewish newspaper in Berlin on 1 September is to send a breath of fresh air through a media scene that has for years been dominated by a single publication.
Published by Nicholas Werner, who owns several Russian language newspapers geared at Russian immigrants to Germany [a high percentage of whom are Jewish], the Juedische Zeitung is to bring more diverse news to the country’s Jewish community.
Werner believes that “the time has come to proliferate the diversity of the Jewish community” in Germany.
“The Jewish community has begun to recover demographically from the shadow of the war”, Werner explained, adding that his newspaper will meet the growing need for more diverse information. He is convinced that more news and more variety is needed to feed a community that is expanding, both as a body and within the non-Jewish environment.
End of Monopoly
The Juedische Allgemeine Zeitung (JAZ) has held a virtual monopoly on printed German language Jewish news since the war. Though smaller niche magazines and papers exist, they have not found themselves on all the major coffee tables of Jewish and non-Jewish households and organisations.
JAZ’s advantage is that it is the media organ of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, a heavily subsidised organisation recognised by the federal government as representing the majority of registered Jews in Germany today. Its disadvantage is that it is not an independent source of news.
Unlike the weekly JAZ, the Juedische Zeitung will begin by publishing only a monthly edition. Werner claims that by being a monthly, his staff will have adequate time to prepare meaningful stories.
“Our Juedische Zeitung [translated: Jewish News] is aimed at Jews and non-Jews alike,” Werner commented. He sees his newspaper as a forum for dialogue, in an era “where the fight of cultures” has begun to dominate national-political agendas.
The Juedische Zeitung plans on placing much more emphasis on news from Israel than other papers.
“There is still a deficit of substantial and revealing information about the modern Israeli state. Although the established media does report on the Middle East, Israel continues to be associated only with security fences, rocket attacks and bombed cafes,” Werner commented.
Avoiding Controversy
Reporting for the German government’s media company Deutsche Welle, Igal Avidan, an Israeli journalist based in Berlin, wrote that the Juedische Zeitung has proven to be a serious publication which covers every conceivable topic on 41 pages.
However, the paper has “omitted asking controversial questions” even though it purports to be an independent media source.
In an interview with Jungle World magazine, Werner said that he hopes his newspaper will be more diverse than the JAZ, giving more attention to the Jewish communities that are not members of the Central Council.
His primary target group are second generation Russian immigrants who, unlike their parents, find that reading in German is easier than Russian.
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