Last fall an email came over the transom from a reader named Debra Gussman with the subject line, “Torah for sale at ShopGoodwill.com.” 

“How does a Torah end up for sale at a rummage site?” Debra asked. “There must be a fascinating backstory here. Or a really sad story.” 

I’d been editor of The Forward only a few weeks, but I knew Debra was right: the tale of the Torah could have been a front-page story at The New York Times, where I’d just left after 21 years. I forwarded the email to Ari Feldman, who turned it into not one but two fascinating and sad stories about the Torah’s odyssey. Last week, those stories won first prize for enterprise/investigative reporting at the American Jewish Press Association’s Simon Rockower Awards.

It was one of four top honors and nine total prizes for The Forward in what some call the Jewish Pulitzers. Our deputy Yiddish editor Jordan Kutzik won first place in commentary for "Ashkenormativity? What about Israel-centrism?" Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, Life Editor, took first in feature writing for “In Brighton Beach, a nostalgia for oppression,” and Stav Ziv, a freelance contributor, won the arts category with “The meteoric rise of the a capella Hanukkah video."

This award-winning journalism is what you would support by subscribing to The Forward. 

We are a reader-supported nonprofit whose subscribers pay our salaries and freelance fees. Without them, Ari cannot follow the trail of the Torah, Jordan cannot push the provocative questions, Avital cannot probe the crannies of our communities, Stav cannot capture the cultural trends. 

With news exploding and our communities changing these past months, our journalism has only become more ambitious, and more vital. I hope you will subscribe today and join our Forward family.I know with your help we’ll have more to celebrate at next year’s Rockower awards. 

And if you see something that seems like a story — fascinating, sad, or any other kind — follow Debra Gussman’s lead and send it to rudoren@forward.com. 

Thank you for supporting Jewish journalism,

Jodi Rudoren
Editor in Chief
The Forward