The JEWDICIOUS Journey

"At six months, we’ve gone 'full Jew.' And it’s a great thing. Storytelling has always been at the root of the Jewish tradition — and good storytellers speak to everyone."

By Michael Golden

Daniel Pearl founded Stanford Commentary while he was still a student.

Six months ago today, in JEWDICIOUS’s first official sentence, I recalled the savage 2002 video posted by Islamist terrorists that showed them beheading Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl — and his final words of Jewish family pride.

As soon as we released that article, the life and death of 38-year-old Pearl became a sort of inspirational symbol for the JEWDICIOUS mission: to inform, enlighten and activate readers through our 18 points of view. What I never could have envisioned was that exactly six weeks later, the world would see a new and historic massacre of Jews — including multiple beheadings, dismemberments, rapes and other acts of torture.

Back in September, just a few weeks after we’d launched JEWDICIOUS, a non-Jewish friend of mine teased me:

“Hey! When is one of your writers going to put something out there for the masses? I’m waitin’!”

I laughed heartily… And then protested, with a smile:   

“Wait — have you been reading all of our columns? We haven’t even gone ‘full-Jew!’ There’s a whole range of stuff in there. It just all comes from authors who share a Jewish background!”

My pal quickly conceded that he hadn’t read all of our columns to date. I jumped all over that. I mean, the “Scribe Tribe” had been opining on a variety of subjects: from new urgencies in the climate crisis to the challenges of aging to gaslighting in American elections to leveraging the superpower of humility to the truth about Critical Race Theory to…

The irony, several months later, is that my friend turned out to be more right than even he realized. Without question, the editorial content at JEWDICIOUS has moved in the direction of focusing more heavily on Jewish issues, news events, and personal stories. In fact, to the tune of 77 percent (yes, I actually checked).

Due to the title of our publication, you might be thinking: “Duh, Michael. Hello? You’re called JEWDICIOUS!”

Fair point. But the original editorial concept that came to me last summer was broader in scope. In fact, the invitation I sent to each of our writers included two guiding tenets:

First and foremost, to create compelling content that is consistently “judicious” — i.e., well-reasoned, practical, and fact-based (something that used to be a given).

The second guideline read as follows:

“Writing that is inspired by or has a general connection to the age-old Judaic value of Tikkun olam: efforts to repair or improve the world. JEWDICIOUS columnists choose their own topics and write in their own voices — with the common goal of shedding light on subjects in a way that makes readers think or take action.”

Why so “general” an instruction? Another fair question. The truth is that I, myself, am personally interested in viewpoints about all kinds of subjects — as long as they’re well-expressed and backed up by facts and sourcing. That’s the criteria upon which the selection of our founding columnists was made: talented Jewish writers from North America and Israel who bring different experiences to the table.

We achieved that goal by forging a team with a diverse set of professional backgrounds, among them: a movie director, a rabbi, a novelist, a culinary critic, a life coach, a media executive, a country branding expert in Tel Aviv, an entrepreneur in Jerusalem who also teaches Torah, a civil rights prosecutor from the Dept. of Justice, and others (we also partnered with a fascinating Jewish history publication on Substack, Dust and Stars).

For the first several weeks, I reminded everyone through our Friday emails that they could write about anything they wanted. Each column did not have to be Jewish-centric.

But the writers knew better than me — and that’s the first reason that we became an even more Jewish-themed publication. Our group wanted to write about these things that were happening in their lives and in our world. Their Jewishness was more a part of their outlook and thinking than I’d realized.

The second reason we ended up going more Jewey is one you might guess: Like millions of decent people around the world, our writers were viscerally horrified watching the mass murder and heinous assaults perpetrated on our brothers and sisters on Oct. 7. For a time, we set aside more conventional issues and did our best to weigh in directly on the excruciating war triggered by Hamas.

JEWDICIOUS columnist Joanna Landau, second from left and left of Michael, is the founder of Vibe Israel and recently cofounded Hasbara Toolbox, a digital command center for effective Israel Advocacy.

While our fast-growing audience nears 5,000 readers at the six-month mark, we’ve also noticed that it is increasingly dominated by spiritual leaders, community advocates and fellow journalists. So we feel like we’ve got the best of both worlds going on in our readership; engaged public voices as well as curious and impassioned folks from every walk of life.

The most gratifying feeling I get as the editor of this project is when I hear from non-Jewish readers who say they’ve learned something new. Or have a serious question. Or offer a counter-perspective that gives me fresh eyes on a subject.

On November 3, Former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren spoke with JEWDICIOUS from his home’s underground bomb shelter.

Our 25 columnists, editors, and design staff are enormously grateful for your time and interest. While it’s become clear that the editorial direction of our missive has evolved, it is also a certainty that each of us will continue doing our best to write pieces that are accessible and stimulating to our entire readership. We intend to keep listening, thinking and growing — so that we can keep sharing opinions and ideas that are of value to you.   

So yes, we’ve gone “full Jew.” And we view it as a great thing. Storytelling has always been at the root of the Jewish tradition — and good storytellers speak to everyone.

Finally, that guiding JEWDICIOUS principle of tikkun olam — repairing the world — can sound pretty intimidating in the absence of any context. It’s why we must always keep in mind that a goal so momentous is never on any one individual. Making this place better for all of us is a numbers game, and it’s much easier to make progress when we have all hands — and minds — on deck. Toward that end, let’s keep learning from each other. In this space, we’ve only just begun.

Am Yisrael Chai.   

Michael Golden is the founder and editor-in-chief of JEWDICIOUS.

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