Jewish Quarterly

Jewish Quarterly is a UK literary and cultural magazine, published 4 times a year. It focuses on issue of Jewish concern, but also has interests in wider culture and politics.

Not to be confused with The Jewish Quarterly Review.

History and profile

Jewish Quarterly was founded by Jacob Sonntag in 1953 and has published continuously since. Recent editors have included Matthew Reisz and Elena Lappin and the forthcoming acting editor, Rachel Shabi.

In 1974, Sonntag described the Jewish Quarterly:[1]

If I were asked how I envisaged The Jewish Quarterly when I started it more than twenty years ago, I would say that it was to cultivate literary journalism in the best tradition of Central and Eastern Europe and, in particular, in the best tradition of Eastern European Jewish writing ... I belong to the generation which looked for a synthesis between our Jewishness and our Europeanism, between our nationalism and our socialism, between the particular and the universal ... Part of our upbringing was to revere the printed word, to adorn it with a power of its own. How could truth and reason not prevail'? It was just a question of finding the right word, the right combination of words, and everything else would follow from it. Literature was a living thing for us, and the world of books knew no boundaries. We cherished the illusion that "you have only to will it and your dreams would cease to be fairy tales' ... We felt as a collective, we had a sense of community, we felt called upon to add a link to the 'golden chain', handed to us by an earlier generation.

— Jacob Sonntag

Jewish Quarterly sponsors the annual Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize.

References
  1. Lehrer, Natasha (2003). The Golden Chain: Fifty Years of the Jewish Quarterly: Fifty Years of Modern Jewish Writing. Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd. ISBN 978-0853034803.
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