I hope you and your family are safe and healthy. 

The first half of 2020 has been like nothing we've ever experienced, and we hope you are weathering these times as best you can. The Forward is proud to serve the community at this time, keeping you informed and connected through the pandemic, civil unrest, and crucial communal conversations. Our work this year was only made possible by the important progress accomplished in 2019.

2019 was a pivotal year for The Forward. We hired our visionary new editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren who is leading the newsroom with innovative reporting, compelling storytelling, and an opinion section that represents the widest range of views you'll find in Jewish media. We also received our largest one-time gift ever, increased our donations by 36%, partnered with prestigious organizations, won 15 Rockower awards, and reached new and larger audiences nationwide.

Our 2019 Annual Report is now available, recounting the incredible accomplishments our supporters helped us achieve. We are thrilled to share it with you.

Our supporters not only helped us succeed in 2019, but positioned us to successfully face the challenge of taking on this year's unprecedented crisis. Thanks to them, we have been keeping the community informed and connected in these uncertain and historic times, including:

• Increasing our service journalism by publishing more how-tos, first person narratives, and community-focused stories with our re-introduced Scribe platform, everyday heroes series, and more. 
• Sharing a diverse and powerful array of voices on the issues George Floyd’s death illuminated, including how our community members are showing up, how these issues divide our community, as well as rabbis and black clergy’s perspectives.
• Broadcasting our new series of weekly virtual conversations, #ForwardFocus: Talks in Trying Times, that connects you to each other and to experts in our community. We’ve hosted talks on “Unorthodox,” journalism, dating, and more. 
• Providing essential information to Yiddish-speaking communities.
• Breaking news stories related to the Jewish community and coronavirus outbreak, including a Hasidic doctor promoting an unproven treatment and Orthodox Jews’ leadership in donating plasma. 
• Expanding our national presence to better serve our readers across the country. In the last few weeks, we’ve shared how Jews in Detroit, LA, South Florida, Boston, and others are faring and facing challenges.

We know you value The Forward and we thought we’d keep you updated on our exciting achievements. We had an incredible year and our work in 2019 and to date has yielded tremendous results — our users have increased by 30% since December, online giving has increased by nearly 200%, and won the support of 352 new individual donors so far in 2020.

We hope you enjoy reading our 2019 Annual Report, which details our many accomplishments reader support makes possible. If you find it meaningful, I’d be so grateful if you’d support our work so we can keep making these strides in 2020 and beyond.

Sincerely,


Rachel Fishman Feddersen
CEO & Publisher