Announcement of 2025 Jewish Scholastic Journalism Awards winners set for March 23

JSPA will announce winners of the 2025 Jewish Scholastic Journalism Awards this Sunday evening, March 23, beginning at 5 p.m. Pacific time, 8 p.m. Eastern, live via Zoom.

Also announced will be the winner of the Grand Prize in Jewish Scholastic Journalism, chosen from among the First Place winners in each of the contest’s 12 categories.

This year’s competition saw 192 entries from schools across the U.S. as well as in England and India. Winners are from both Jewish and secular high schools. Entries were judged on a variety of criteria including quality of writing and reporting, coverage of Jewish topics; courage and sensitivity in covering Jewish communities; and overall journalistic excellence.

Judging was led by Susan Freudenheim, JSPA’s vice president and former managing editor of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Ms. Freudenheim also worked for 13 years at the Los Angeles Times as staff writer and arts editor, and most recently served as Executive Director of Jewish World Watch.

Other judges this year were:

• Gary Rosenblatt, JSPA board member and editor and publisher of The Jewish Week of New York from 1993 until June 2020, where his achievements included the only article in Jewish news media ever to be a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize;
• Jackson Krule, Senior Visual Producer of the Players’ Tribune and award-winning photojournalist known especially for his photos in the book American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, A Hasidic community in New York;
• Orli Lowe, former assistant book editor of the Los Angeles Times;
• Ryan Smith, a writer in the Office of Communications at Kenyon College who was a reporter and editor for 25 years at newspapers in Ohio and California, including the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles; and
• Leila Miller, former Mexico City correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, now a freelance journalist appearing in the New York Times, Washington Post and The Economist.

A full list of winners including judges’ comments will be posted later this month. All winners will receive certificates, and First Place winners will receive plaques suitable for display, all via land mail sent in April.

Click here to receive a link to the Awards presentation.  For information about last year’s Jewish Scholastic Journalism Awards, please click here.

JSPA gratefully acknowledges the support of the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah; Harvey Motulsky and Lisa Norton; the Maimonides Fund; Jean and Dr. Jerry Friedman, and all of our donors and supporters, who together make our work possible.