Jewish News Syndicate

Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) is a news agency and wire service that primarily covers Jewish and Israel-related topics and news. While officially nonpartisan, compared to its older competitor, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, JNS is considered to be more conservative.

History

The wire service was launched in September 2011 with an exclusive U.S. distribution deal with the free Israeli daily Israel Hayom. It is published by Russel Pergament and Joshua Katzen. Its editor-in-chief is American journalist Jonathan S. Tobin and its CEO and Jerusalem bureau chief is Alex Traiman.
Among its top contributors, editors and reporters are Melanie Phillips, Ruthie Blum, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Menachem Wecker, Carin M. Smilk, Mark Regev, Steve Linde, Yaakov Lappin, Akiva Van Koningsveld, David Isaac, Joshua Marks, Andrew Bernard, Mike Wagenheim, Canaan Lidor, Etgar Lefkovits and Josh Hasten. Caroline Glick was JNS's top columnist until she was appointed International Affairs Advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February 2025.

By 2013, JNS was growing quickly, with left-leaning Jewish newspaper ''The Forward'' crediting its pro-Israel perspective and cheaper price compared to its larger and older competitor, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA). The wire then employed five staff members. Approximately 40 new outlets used JNS, compared to 88 outlets using JTA. Subscribers to JNS paid between $400 to $700 per month, with the first year free, for access to the wire service. In 2015, JNS had between 40 and 55 newspapers, with a third in the free trial period. The editor-in-chief until 2016 was Jacob Kamaras. Until 2020, JNS's largest single donor was Sheldon Adelson.

JNS won its first two Rockower Awards in 2019. Since then it has won awards each year as of 2024. JNS has broken stories later reported by Al Jazeera English, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Jewish Journal. From 2023 until 2025, JNS distributed the '' Dry Bones'' comic strip previously carried by ''The Jerusalem Post'', until the death of its creator, Yaakov Kirschen.

It held the inaugural JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem on April 27–28, 2025, at the Waldorf Astoria Jerusalem. More than 800 people attended addresses by, among others, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee.

Editorial positions

In 2015, ''The Forward'' described JNS as focusing heavily on Israeli security threats. Frequent columnists Ben Cohen and Stephen M. Flatow wrote often against the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Obama administration more generally, and the JNS board included Middle East Forum president and pro-Israel hawk Daniel Pipes and neoconservative Harvard professor Ruth Wisse.

JNS's publisher Russel Pergament described the wire service as a "nonpartisan, objective, straight down the middle newswire with no axe to grind except one: to see that Israel gets a fair shake in the news." "There are some editors who do not want to upset their readers so they’ll publish a JNS news brief about someone in Israel inventing a new flavor of ice cream, but they won’t run anything that’s kind of scary," he told the Jewish Press.

JNS has been described as conservative, right-leaning, and more hawkish than JTA. According to Rick Kestenbaum of the American Jewish Press Association, editors of Jewish media outlets are aware of JNS's ideology and difference from JTA.

Finances

The Adelson Foundation was revealed in 2015 to be the largest single funder of JNS. Between 2013 and 2015, the Adelson Foundation had contributed over $1.2 million. In 2015, Adam Milstein donated $12,500.

References

External links

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*{{Official website, https://www.jns.org

Conservative media in the United States
Newspapers
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Zionism in the United States
News agencies based in the United States
Mass media companies of the United States