JEWISH STUDIES GRAD STARTS NEW MAGAZINE
Josh Lipowsky ’04
communications and Jewish studies notes that Pennsylvania has the fourth
largest Jewish population in the country,
a fact important to his new job as editor of a new glossy quarterly devoted
to Jewish life in the commonwealth.
How did a new graduate land a job as an editor? While a student, Lipowsky interned at King Publishing, a State College-based printing company that produces local publications State College Magazine and Pennsylvania Business Central. He wrote a number of stories for the magazine and, when he graduated, worked for the company full-time.
But he had also done work with the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, and he had checked with other papers as well: The Philadelphia Exponent, the Atlanta Jewish Times, and the Baltimore Jewish Times. He loved what those papers offered, and saw how communities in the cities were very connected to the publications.
“But outside of the cities, there was nothing,” he says. “I went to Jana (King, of King Publishing) and started asking if there was a way we could serve the rest of the state in the Jewish journalism world.”
King liked the idea, and Lipowsky set about researching the feasibility of a Jewish feature magazine marketed to the entire state. Performing market research, talking with groups like Hillel, and approaching rabbis and others at synagogues, Lipowsky found again and again a wealth of positive feedback.
This
December, the prototype issue of Hayom (Hebrew for “today”)
started appearing 
everywhere
in free publication racks, a glossy of twenty-four pages, featuring
articles on the “Jewel of Huntingdon”—congregation
Agudath Achim synagogue—as well as a profile of Accuweather
forecaster Elliot Abrams, a discussion of the the link between
terrorism and the economy,
a “Jewish survival
guide to December,” and even a recipe for Mama Lipowsky’s
potato latkes.
The prototype issue is smaller than the regular issue will be, and it will also not be free forever. Starting in March, the publishers will produce Hayom quarterly for subscribers. Will it be on newsstands? Lipowsky sounds upbeat when he says, “We’ll see where it goes.”
It may go far. Lipowsky says that whenever he talks about the magazine, he gets good replies. “There was an immediate response,” he says. “Even before we had the first issue out, we got a good response for subscriptions. Each week we get a few more. The support of the community is very gratifying. I think it’s because we are starting a unique publication in Pennsylvania; there is no other magazine that goes statewide and covers Jewish life.”