Registration is now open for the 2025 Jewish Scholastic Journalism Conference, three days of workshops, networking and inspiration for high school journalists and with special programming on Shabbat, set for Dec. 4 – 6 in Beverly Hills, Calif.
The annual gathering gives students a chance to spend quality time together while enriching their understanding of newsroom ethics, opportunities, skills and techniques. This year there will be a focus on new media platforms and a widening range of career possibilities, from social media and podcasting to newsletters, explanatory video, and leadership and business roles.
“In a society that’s divided not just ideologically but even about which facts and information sources to believe, JSPA is working to prepare students for all kinds of roles, and to approach those roles with the greatest possible thoroughness and integrity,” said Joelle Keene, JSPA’s founder and executive director.
This year’s featured speaker will be Gaby Grossman, Director of Editorial Operations at Puck, the rapidly growing New York-based independent media company focusing on the intersection of Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Washington, as well as the fashion market and the art market. Ms. Grossman held the same title at New York Magazine, working her way up from 2018 to 2024 in various roles including Managing Editor of its Curbed and Grub Street platforms, after stints at BuzzFeed, Netflix and NBC Universal.
An alumna of Boston University, Ms. Grossman attended Shalhevet High School in Los Angeles, where she served as an editor of The Boiling Point.
At JSPA’s conference, she will introduce the meeting’s focus on young journalists meeting a moment of challenge and change.
“It isn’t just writing and photography, it’s social media and people management and so many other things,” Ms. Grossman said. “Also the entire revenue side of the house — account management and sales — and ‘design’ can mean so many things now.”
Additional new topics this year will include journalism’s role in relating divergent viewpoints, whether nationally or within Jewish communities; medical reporting; and the role of courage in presenting facts that explore complicated subjects.
On Saturday afternoon, the conference considers a real-world newsroom dilemma faced by a JSPA member high school within the last year, evaluating it through the lens of Torah verses they can apply to their own student media roles when they get home.
Convention Weekdays and Shabbat
The conference will be held at a synagogue that is walking distance from kosher restaurants of all kinds and at least 15 synagogues of various denominations, along with hotels that will offer discounts of 30% to JSPA attendees.
Beginning at 9 a.m. and continuing throughout the day Thursday and Friday, students and their advisers will be able to choose among various 45-minute workshops, with options including how to cover Israel and the larger Jewish world from a high school newsroom; basic and advanced photojournalism; lashon harah (gossip) and other guiding considerations found in the Torah; Jewish journalism on college campuses, led by current university students; and many more.
The program will break both days for lunch and a chance to sample LA’s famed Pico-Robertson kosher restaurant scene. At dinner on Thursday, arranged and catered off-site by the conference, Ms. Grossman will describe her career journey and some particular experiences and insights of her career.
Shabbat meals will be held at the conference venue. Parks and other walking opportunities are available in the area after lunch. A JSPA Havdalah is planned for the end of the day, with Shabbat ending at 5:24 p.m.
JSPA will provide details, including a list of neighborhood davening opportunities and times, with registration. Please write to [email protected] for information if you have questions sooner.
Registration is $150 per person and includes Thursday night dinner, and Friday night Shabbat dinner and Saturday Shabbat lunch. Early bird registration of $130 is offered to those who pay by Nov. 10. Please click here to register for the conference.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE
JSPA is a national journalism education organization that teaches students top-level skills while looking at journalism through a Jewish lens. Its goals are to develop and improve student media at Jewish high schools, enhance journalism education in those schools, teach students and advisers how they can add Jewish content and sensibility to their publications, and also to convey a Jewish outlook on journalism to students in any school.
It promotes these goals in a way that respects Jewish values and the Jewish calendar, in particular using Shabbat to create a journalistic cohort that can consider news gathering in a Jewish way. Its motto, found in Leviticus Chapter 19, verse 16, is, You shall not go up and down as a talebearer among your people, neither shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor; I am the Lord. Applying this in journalism means using both courage and restraint, knowing when to use which, and being able to channel curiosity into purpose.
For more information, please contact Joelle Keene at [email protected].
This year’s conference is made possible by the American Jewish Press Association, Beth Jacob Congregation, Jeanne and Dr. Jerry Friedman, the Harvey Motulsky and Lisa Norton Family Fund, and donors like you. JSPA is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and would be honored to have your donation.
