Hadassah Magazine has won 13 Simon Rockower Awards, the annual prizes for excellence in Jewish journalism handed out by the American Jewish Press Association. The award-winning magazine was recognized on June 23 for its work done in 2024 during the AJPA’s 44th annual conference, this year held in Pittsburgh.

While the judges acknowledged the magazine’s “vividly descriptive” art reviews and insightful personal stories, the majority of the prizes were awarded to the magazine’s stories focused on Israel post-October 7 and global antisemitism.

Hilary Danailova won first place for “A Medical Emergency” in the Wild Card Category of Excellence in Writing about the War in Israel: Antisemitism. Danailova’s reporting “forcefully describes antisemitism within the medical community and the emergence of Jewish medical professional groups in the wake of October 7,” the judges noted.

In another wild card category—Excellence in Writing about the War in Israel: News and Feature Reporting—Leora Eren Frucht won first place for “Public Art as Therapy” and Hadassah Magazine Executive Editor Lisa Hostein won second place for “Survivors Share Their Stories.”

Hostein also won honorable mention for the same story in the category of Excellence in Covering Zionism, Aliyah and Israel. Described by the judges as “very readable and informative,” the article maintained “an excellent balance between citing horrific details without being excessively graphic and detailing the larger context of worldwide antisemitism and the action being taken to counter it.”

Abby Horowitz won first place for “Welcome Home” in the category of Excellence in Personal Essays. The judges praised Horowitz for both writing and illustrating a unique graphic personal essay about visiting Israel after October 7.

Sue Fishkoff won first place for “Ramping Up—and Rethinking—Israel Education” in the category of Excellence in Education Reporting.

Eren Frucht won another first place award, this time for her story “Blazing New Trails” in the category of Excellence in Feature Writing. “We root for these women,” the judges wrote of the Bedouin women profiled for breaking glass ceilings in their community.

Maayan Hoffman won first place for “Ignored Until it was Too Late”, her story about the tragic fate of Israel’s female observer soldiers on October 7, in the category of Excellence in Writing about Women. In the same category, Eren Frucht won Honorable Mention for “Blazing New Trails.”

Abigail Pogrebin won first place for “Let There Be Light” in the category of Excellence in Single Commentary. Pogrebin “uses the Torah as a lens to view our current-day tragedies,” the judges commented. “In so doing, we hope to cope a little better.”

Uriel Heilman won second place for “A Kibbutz in Exile” in the category of Excellence in Writing about Seniors. The story “isn’t overtly about seniors,” the judges noted, “but in a good way, working them into a bigger and interesting context of being exiled to a hotel and showing the good and bad in that.”

Beyond the magazine’s Israel- and antisemitism-related coverage, Sandye Rudnitzky won second place for “One Beautiful Egg: The First Gestational Surrogacy” in the category of Excellence in Writing About Healthcare. The judges called Rudnitzky’s story about the first baby ever to be born using the egg and sperm from biological parents in a surrogate’s womb, written by the biological mother, “a wondrous piece” and a “fascinating read.”

And Robert Goldblum won second place for “Remembrance of ‘Things’ Past” in the category of Excellence in Arts— Review/Criticism. The judges praised Goldblum’s review of Israeli photographer and collage artist Ilit Azoulay’s exhibit at The Jewish Museum in New York City as “beautifully written” and “vividly descriptive.”

“In one of the most heart-wrenching years in modern Jewish history, Hadassah Magazine focused heavily on the issues foremost on everyone’s mind, telling stories of those most deeply affected in post-October 7 Israel and by the surge in global antisemitism,” said Hostein, the magazine’s executive editor. “We felt compelled to bring these stories to light and are proud that so many of them have been honored with Rockower Awards for their journalistic excellence.”

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Arielle Kaplan is the digital editor of Hadassah Magazine.