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Thursday October 11, 2007

Woody Weingarten steps down as j.’s managing editor after 24 years

by dan pine
staff writer

It was a slow news week in the Bay Area Jewish community.

S.F. Supervisor Wendy Nelder was pushing to install a Christmas crèche in City Hall. The Contra Costa Jewish Community Center announced it would hold its first Monte Carlo night.

But in the June 15, 1984 edition of the Jewish Bulletin, a page 5 story also announced the arrival of Sherwood L. Weingarten, a veteran newspaperman and award-winning journalist who would become the Bulletin’s managing editor. He said at the time, “I want [the Bulletin] to become so exciting that it will reach every member of the Jewish community.”

He won some, he lost some, but for almost a quarter of a century, Woody Weingarten helped lead the Bulletin –– which became j. in 2003 –– to new heights of journalistic excellence. And true to his word, he always kept the newspaper exciting.

Effective this week, Weingarten, 70, steps down as j.’s managing editor.

Said j. publisher Marc Klein, “Woody has had a major impact on making this paper the quality publication that it has been the past 24 years. He will be sorely missed, and we wish him well in the many endeavors he has before him.”

Added Weingarten, “I’ll miss the talmudic-type discussions at the office with everyone, about everything, from the ‘correct’ spelling of Chanukah to how God could have allowed the Holocaust to happen.”

A native of New Rochelle, N.Y., Weingarten graduated from Colgate University, launching his career at a New York City weekly. He went on to serve as editor and city editor of daily newspapers in Cherry Hill, N.J., and Port Chester, N.Y.. He also founded and published The People’s Paper, a weekly in Clearwater, Fla.

A music buff, Weingarten also wrote a monthly column for Audio magazine for five years.

During his career, he won numerous awards for news writing and investigative reporting.

But it was at the Jewish Bulletin and j. that he spent the bulk of his career, leaving a lasting mark on the Bay Area Jewish community.

“I handled about 100 stories each week for 24 years,” he said. “That comes to about 120,000 over my tenure here. I’ve loved the excitement of juggling hundreds of emails and faxes and phone calls each week.”

Noted Klein, “Woody has had one of the most difficult positions in that he had to be the gatekeeper. Since we’ve had only three reporters, it’s been impossible to do every story that people want us to do. Woody had to say no to many requests over the years.”

During his time at the newspaper, Weingarten has seen the best the Bay Area Jewish community has to offer. And, occasionally, the not-so-good.

“I’ve come to expect that Friday afternoons, about 4 p.m., I’d get calls from one or two people who had forgotten to take their meds,” he said. “One of my favorites came a few years back from a guy who insisted all the anti-Semites came from the same spaceship.”

Said freelance writer and frequent j. contributor Joshua Brandt, “Woody seems like an anachronism in today’s corporate-driven media world, where number crunchers call the shots. When I would go way out on a journalistic limb, Woody would calmly explain that I might be more effective taking it down a few notches. On the occasions when I would play it too safe, he would encourage me to aim higher.”

Weingarten has many admirers in the Jewish community.

Said the Jewish Community Relations Council executive director, Rabbi Doug Kahn, “I always enjoyed my dialogues with Woody, even when we did not see eye to eye. I have a strong appreciation for his newspaper savvy, and in particular his appreciation for the creative energies in our Jewish community, which he was eager to capture in reaching out to new readers. He brought a free spirit to the one Jewish newspaper we have, and it was all the richer for it.”

Historian and academic Stephen Dobbs said “Woody has been a vigilant editor, manning the barricades against extraneous verbiage and information that neglects to advance the story. We’ve worked together primarily on book reviews for the last eight years, and I’ve appreciated his encouragement and patience.”

Added Jewish Film Festival Director Peter Stein, “I respect Woody’s very broad-minded view of what qualifies as of interest to a wide Jewish community. In a world where it would be very easy to mimic the tried and true, he continued to challenge readers.”

Weingarten and his wife of 20 years, Nancy Fox, have collaborated on musical theater projects. There may be more merry melodies in their future, since he has outlined several projects for himself in the months and years ahead. “I plan to finish up a book I’ve been writing,” Weingarten said, “and maybe start a second one with my wife. And now that I’ve been told I’m free of prostate cancer, I’m likely to add still another creative project or two to my life.”

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