Passing in Print: (Non)Jewish News in the Mainstream Press during the Holocaust

Max Weinreich Fellowship Lecture in American Jewish Studies The Rose and Isidore Drench Memorial Fellowship and the Dora and Mayer Tendler Endowed Fellowship in Jewish Studies Admission: Free Registration is required. Register

In the early days of World War II, as the threat of Nazism loomed large, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) and its non-sectarian subsidiary, the Overseas News Agency (ONA), embarked on a covert mission to inform the world about the escalating crisis in Europe. This lecture will uncover the ways in which these organizations operated to overcome significant barriers in news gathering and dissemination in a prejudiced media landscape. Moreover, it will explore how the JTA and ONA used a particular form of “passing” to place stories of Jewish persecution on the front pages of America's leading newspapers in their attempts to alter public perceptions of Jewish persecution in Europe without revealing their Jewish affiliations. The lecture traces the strategic decisions made by key figures in the Jewish journalistic world during a time of crisis that fundamentally reshaped how news was categorized, gathered, circulated, and consumed.

About the Speaker

Nathan Lucky holds a BA (Hons.) and MA in history from the University of British Columbia. Currently, he is a PhD student at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. His areas of interest include Holocaust history, news media production and circulation, Jewish and non-Jewish relations, refugees, and espionage. He is the 2023-2024 recipient of The Rose and Isidore Drench Memorial Fellowship and the Dora and Mayer Tendler Endowed Fellowship in American Jewish Studies at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.