Moment is an independent magazine known for its award winning journalism and online presence, cultural and literary criticism, and innovative projects. It provides a unique lens on the issues that trouble, concern, and inspire American Jews.

Its reputation as a thought leader in the magazine world has earned it major journalism awards, including the Religion News Association Award for Excellence in Magazines. Moment has also been a finalist for the Newhouse School of Journalism’s Mirror Awards and received a first place award for “General Excellence in Websites” from the American Jewish Press Association.

Founded in 1975 by Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel and writer Leonard Fein, it has been led by journalist Nadine Epstein since 2004.

Editorial Leadership

Editor-in-Chief & CEO: Nadine Epstein

Award-winning journalist Nadine Epstein is editor-in-chief and CEO of Moment Magazine,  founder and executive director of the Washington, DC-based Center for Creative Change, founder of the Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative for young reporters, and founder and editor of MomentBooks. She reported for the City News Bureau of Chicago and the Chicago Bureau of The New York Times, then later covered the U.S.-Mexico border and rural America. After a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, she taught in the Masters Program in Journalism there. She holds degrees in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and was a University Fellow in the political science doctoral program at Columbia University. Epstein has written and edited books including the forthcoming RBG’s Brave and Brilliant Women:33 Jewish Women to Inspire Everyone, Elie Wiesel: An Extraordinary Life and Legacy, contributed to anthology collections including Racing in the Streets: The Bruce Springsteen Reader and The Late, Great Mexican Border: Reports from a Disappearing Line, and cowrote the short documentary Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer. Her articles and op-eds have been published in a wide range of publications including The Washington Post, Smithsonian, Newsweek and The New York Times. Epstein speaks internationally about anti-Semitism and other issues pertinent to the global Jewish community, and has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, All Things Considered, Al-Jazeera, among other media outlets. She  is also an artist, the creator of the iShadow Project and cofounder of TheMomentGallery. Read her writing here.

Editor: Sarah Breger

Sarah Breger came to Moment in 2009 as a Rabbi Harold S. White Fellow and served as Deputy Editor of Moment since 2014. She is also the director of the Daniel Pearl Investigative Initiative. While at Moment she has won numerous awards, including first place for religion reporting of the year from the Religion News Association and first place for Best In-Depth Newswriting on Religion from the American Academy of Religion. She is a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Pennsylvania. Read her writing here.

Managing Editor: Ellen Wexler

Ellen Wexler is a journalist based in Washington, DC. She was a finalist for the 2018 Mirror Awards for her story on Whitefish, Montana, “After the Cyber Storm.” She previously covered education at Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Education Week. She is a graduate of the College of William and Mary. Read her writing here.

Editorial Staff

Book & Opinion Editor: Amy E. Schwartz

Amy E. Schwartz received a degree in literature from Harvard University. She worked at Harper’s Magazine and The New Republic before joining the Washington Post, where she was an editorial writer and op-ed columnist on cultural issues from 1985 to 2002. Schwartz has also lived in and reported from France, Germany and Turkey. Read her writing here.

Arts & Articles Editor: Diane M. Bolz

Diane Bolz worked for Smithsonian magazine for more than 35 years, where, as a senior editor and arts editor, she commissioned, edited and wrote articles on the fine arts, architecture, performing arts, popular culture and history. Before coming to Smithsonian, she worked in New York City for architects I. M. Pei and Richard Meier. Bolz majored in English and art history at Cornell and Columbia Universities. Read her writing here.

Poetry Editor: Jody Bolz

Jody Bolz is the author of the poetry collections A Lesson in Narrative Time, Shadow Play, and The Near and Far. She received her BA and MFA degrees from Cornell University, where she studied with poet A.R. Ammons. She taught creative writing for more than twenty years at George Washington University and edited Poet Lore, America’s oldest poetry journal, from 2002 to 2019. Among her honors are grants from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the Maryland State Arts Council.

Senior Editor: Dina Gold

Dina Gold has postgraduate degrees in social anthropology from both London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies and Oxford University. At Oxford, she was the first woman to graduate from Corpus Christi College since its founding in 1517. Her first job in journalism was as a financial reporter on the “Investors Chronicle” in the UK before she joined the BBC to work as an investigative reporter and producer for both radio and television. Gold was also a BBC ombudsman and BBC policy advisor to the British police at Scotland Yard. She is the author of Stolen Legacy.

Senior Editor: Diane Heiman

Diane Heiman is a graduate of Brown University and Georgetown Law School. After practicing law for more than a decade, she wrote five children’s books, winning awards including the prestigious Children’s Choice Award.

Senior Editor: George Johnson

George E. Johnson is a Washington-based lawyer and writer. He formerly was Research Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Planning and Research of the Synagogue Council of America. He is the author of studies on numerous Jewish policy issues, including inter-marriage, Russian-Jewish immigrants, American aliyah, and Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians.

Senior Editor: Eileen Lavine

Eileen Lavine has previously worked as a writer and editor for the New Bedford Standard Times, The New York Times Youth Forums, UNESCO and the Marshall Plan Radio Unit, and also served as the president of information services at the Bethesda Editorial Company. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin—where she was the first woman editor of the student-run Daily Cardinal—and of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Senior Editor: Francie Weinman Schwartz

Francie Weinman Schwartz is a writer and educator specializing in Jewish subjects. She has lectured extensively and serves as a facilitator for a course in Wise Aging at her synagogue, Temple Micah, in Washington, D.C. She received her Master’s Degree in Judaic Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Schwartz is the co-author of The Jewish Moral Virtues and A Touch of the Sacred, books she wrote with the late rabbi and eminent liberal Jewish theologian Dr. Eugene Borowitz. She lives in Potomac, Maryland, with her husband Stuart. She’s the proud mother of Dana and David, and three grandchildren, Jonah, Teo and Stella.

Senior Editor: Laurence Wolff

Laurence Wolff was previously an education officer at the World Bank and has written and published widely on education policy issues in developing countries. Most recently he has focused on the challenges facing Israeli education, the growth of Reform Judaism in Israel, and the demographic future of Israel’s population. He holds a doctorate in education planning and administration from Harvard.

Contributors

Robert Siegel

Siegel was the senior host of NPR’s award-winning evening newsmagazine All Things Considered. In 2018, Siegel was awarded the Edward Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. Siegel has been honored with three Silver Batons from Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University, as well as the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award.

Moment Institute Senior Fellows

Ira Forman

Forman runs Moment’s Anti-Semitism Monitor and is a visiting professor and senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. From 2013 to2017, he served as the U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism (MOAS). He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard, and has an MBA from Stanford University. He publishes opinion op-eds worldwide.

Nathan Guttman

Guttman writes Moment’s DC Dispatch: Five Things to Know This Week. He is the U.S. correspondent for Israel’s public broadcasting corporation and has served as Washington bureau chief for The Forward, Ha’aretz and the Jerusalem Post. His award-winning reporting has included coverage of the highs and lows of the Middle East peace process and the role of Jewish interests in U.S. politics.

Amy Saltzman

Saltzman is the director of Moment’s 2020 Jewish Political Voices Project, which is examining the evolving political attitudes of the American Jewish community over the course of the 2020 Presidential campaign. She is a former Senior Vice President of The Hatcher Group and former Senior Editor at US News & World Report.

Business and Professional Staff

Associate Publisher: Tanya George

Tanya George is a development professional with more than 30 years of experience working with nonprofit organizations. Since 1999, George has worked as a free-lance fundraiser and writer for various groups including Justice at Stake, the ARAVA Institute for Environmental Studies, Wider Opportunities for Women and the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance. From 1988 to June 1999, George served as Vice President for Development for Partners of the Americas, a private voluntary organization that carries out technical assistance and training programs in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Director of Marketing: Ellen Meltzer

Ellen Meltzer has spent more than fifteen years as a marketing and communications strategist. Her international experience includes positions as creative director at Ogilvy & Mather and Leo Burnett in Hong Kong, and writer at J Walter Thompson, Melbourne, Australia. Meltzer joined Moment in 2015.

Special Assistant to the Editor and Event Director: Johnna Raskin

Johnna Raskin is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She previously worked as Senior Press Specialist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and helped launch the National Geographic Channel as Manager of Communications. She joined Moment in 2013.

Director of Community Affairs: Debbie Sann

Debbie Sann’s professional experience includes almost 20 years in marketing, communications and business strategy. Sann is also a seasoned Jewish communal professional and contributed to the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington for almost five years. She earned an M.B.A. from the Columbia Business School and an M.S. from Cornell University.

Communications Director: Pat Lewis

Pat Lewis is a longtime communications and development professional who has worked with a wide range of nonprofits and government agencies. She served most recently as a consultant for OWL: The Voice of Women 40+, and as communications director for the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities and the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers. A former journalist, she worked in the White House media office under President Bill Clinton. Lewis has a history degree from Duke University and a master’s in political science from Auburn University.

Special Projects Manager: Suzanne Borden

Suzanne Borden worked for many years at Hillel International, overseeing a campus community service initiative and at PANIM: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values, coordinating programs for Jewish high school students and writing a service-learning curriculum. Suzanne is an experienced meeting and event planner. She earned her degree in Community and Family Studies from the University of Delaware.

Consumer Marketing: Nicole Bowman

Nicole Bowman is an award-winning leader in the field of consumer marketing, fulfillment, and audience development. After having worked as the Consumer Marketing Director for companies including Gruner+Jahr, Dennis Publishing, Cowles Enthusiast, and Spin, Nicole started her own circulation and consumer marketing consultancy. She has launched nearly a dozen titles including OK!, Complex, and The Week. Nicole has also served as Chairman of The DMA Circulation Council and the President of the Media & Content Marketing Association.

Moment, named after the Yiddish-language Der Moment, was founded in 1975 by Elie Wiesel and writer Leonard Fein. (Der Moment began in 1910, and was a massive circulation newspaper, and, as Wiesel said, “lived until it was murdered together with Polish Jewry.” (Der Moment can be found on microfilm at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York.)

The mission of the new Moment: to be a place for  diverse opinions “of no single ideological position, save of course, for a commitment to Jewish life.” Now in its 46th year, Moment remains as independent as ever. (The most read stories from 2020 are here.)

A professor, political activist and author of 57 books, Elie Wiesel is best known for his acclaimed memoir, Night, a searing autobiographical account of the horrors he witnessed and endured as a teenager in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. For decades after, he spoke out against atrocities and genocides around the world. The Nobel committee recognized his work in 1986 by awarding Wiesel the Nobel Peace Prize. He passed away in 2016. MomentBooks, a new imprint with Vilar Mandel, has just published Elie Wiesel: An Extraordinary Life and Legacy.

Leonard Fein was Moment’s founding editor for 11 years. His editor’s column came alive with his passions – social justice and ending racism and poverty, Judaism, Israel and the American Jewish community. He also founded Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and the National Jewish Coalition for Literacy. He died in 2014. Moment published a collection of his writings in “Leonard Fein: Vision and Passion” in 2016.

2020

Simon Rockower Awards
“A Jewish Outsider in Paris” , Robert Siegel
“It’s Stephen Miller time“, Marc Fisher
“The New Mechitza” , Eetta Prince-Gibson
Moment Magazine, Award for General Excellence – Best Website

Religion News Association
Award for Excellence in Magazine, Best Issue

2019

Simon Rockower Awards
“The Dark Side of Shalom Bayit,” Nadine Epstein
“Inside the Iron Dome,” Dan Raviv (first place in two categories)
 “Abby Stein: A Gender Transition Through a Jewish Lens,” Simi Horwitz

2018

Mirror Awards
“Sheldon Adelson: Playing to Win,” Nadine Epstein and Wesley G. Pippert, finalist for best single article/story
“Report From Whitefish: After the Cyber Storm,” Ellen Wexler, finalist for best single article/story

Simon Rockower Awards
“Letter From New Haven,” Ellen Wexler, Award for Excellence in Social Justice Reporting
“No Patience for Patriarchy,” Eetta Prince-Gibson, first place, David Frank Award for Excellence in Personality Profiles
“The Polish Republic of Untruth,” Konstanty Gebert, first place Award of Excellence in Writing about Jewish Heritage and Jewish Peoplehood in Europe
“Growing Up Trump,” Marc Fisher, first place Award for Excellence in Feature Writing
“After the Cyber Storm,” Ellen Wexler, second place Award for Excellence in Feature Writing

Religion Newswriters Association Awards
“Strangers in Their Own Land,” May Jeong, print & online finalist
“Letter From New Haven,” “Letter From Dahlonega” and “Report From Whitefish,” Ellen Wexler and Noah Phillips, multiple media finalist
“Letter From Whitefish” (video), Zachary Frank, multiple media finalist

2017

Simon Rockower Awards
 “The Curious Case of Dorothy L. Sayers and the Jew Who Wasn’t There,” Amy E. Schwartz, second place Award for Excellence in Arts and Criticism News and Features
“Is Sitting This One Out, Who Will be Israel’s Champion?” and “The True Value of Cheap Books”, Shmuel Rosner, second place Louis Rapoport Award for Excellence in Commentary

2016 

International Association of Culinary Professionals, Food Writing Award
“The Great Hanukkah Clanging,” Nadine Epstein, finalist

2015 

Nominations for Livingston Award for Best “Investigative News Story” from New American Media

Clarion Award from the Association of Women in Communications for Best Feature Article/Current News for Eetta Prince-Gibson’s An Uneasy Union

Religion Newswriters Association
First place award in magazine news reporting from the for Prince’s An Uneasy Union, along with awards for Nadine Epstein’s Evolution of a Moderate on Mohammed Dajani, and for Michael Orbach’s story Professor of Disbelief on James Kugel.