It’s nice every now and then to get a little recognition for your work. It’s even nicer when that recognition goes two ways.
Bryan Schwartzman, a staff writer for the Jewish Exponent for 10 years, won a second-place award in feature writing as part of the annual journalism contest sponsored by the American Jewish Press Association for a story on Chabad centers in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Titled “Chabad Influence,” the 3,000-plus-word story ran in the spring/summer 2013 issue of Inside magazine, the newspaper’s Jewish-lifestyle periodical.
While synagogues have struggled and even closed in the Greater Philadelphia area in the past 15 years, Chabad has grown at an unprecedented rate under the leadership of Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, regional director of Chabad-Lubavitch and chairman of Agudas Chassidei Chabad, the umbrella organization of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Chabad has added 23 local centers since 2001 alone, with 38 couples now serving a five-county area.
The story focuses on Lubavitch of Montgomery County’s new $4 million synagogue and community center in Fort Washington, Pa., co-directed by Rabbi Shaya and Devorah Deitsch, as well as the history of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in general. Schwartzman, 38, says “it was great to have the chance to look at something you know exists, know is there, and then get to understand how it works, how it is growing and what they are doing—the philosophical underpinnings driving the rabbis and the reasons why people are going to the programs.
“And I was pleasantly surprised at the positive response I received from many of the Chabad emissaries interviewed for the story because I got critical viewpoints and some strong criticism in there. It means that this is a secure organization. They grasp their mission and are okay” with the feedback.
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