Front page, 17 January 1896, showing article by Theodor Herzl (the father of political Zionism)
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Type | Weekly newspaper |
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Format | Tabloid |
Owner(s) | Kessler Foundation (UK) |
Editor | Stephen Pollard |
Founded | 1841 |
Language | English |
Headquarters | 28 St. Albans Lane London NW11 7QE |
Circulation | 22,460 (June 2013) |
Website | www |
The Jewish Chronicle (The JC) is a London-based Jewish weekly newspaper. Founded in 1841, it is the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world.
The newspaper is published every Friday (except on days which are Jewish holidays, when it appears earlier in the week) providing news, views, social, cultural and sports reports, as well as editorials and a spectrum of readers' opinions on the letter page. It is independent and owned by the Kessler Foundation (UK), a charitable trust in the United Kingdom which has overall control of the newspaper and its assets.
In 1881 the leaders of the Jewish community in London were being criticised for not campaigning against the pogroms that were taking place in the Russian Empire. The late Francis Henry Goldsmid's leadership was missed by the Chronicle and it was only after the feminist Louisa Goldsmid gave her support following calls to arms by an anonymous writer named "Juriscontalus" and Asher Myers of the Jewish Chronicle that action was taken. Public meetings were then held across the country and Jewish and Christian leaders in Britain spoke out against the atrocities.
The average number of copies sold per week is estimated to be in the region of 32,000 (accurate as of June 2010). The newspaper's website includes paid-for searchable archives of all editions from the first issue to the present, making it valuable for Anglo-Jewish genealogists and historians. The website was launched in 2000 and has won three successive Weekly Newspaper on the Web awards. It was relaunched in 2008.
The JC sponsors the Jewish Sunday league system in London, known as the Maccabi Football League.
The newspaper has been seen as "a firm and influential champion of Zionism". In 2014 the paper published an advertisement for the Disasters Emergency Committee's Gaza appeal, for which it received complaints from a significant number of readers. The editor issued an apology for the publication of the advert, stating that the paper's position was supportive of Operation Protective Edge, and that he did not accept the generally published figures on the number of civilian casualties, believing many were terrorists. The editorial stated that "Almost alone in the British media the JC has stressed Israel's right to defend herself and sought to explain why Israel was faced with no choice but to take action in Gaza."