Ellen Frankel's blog

This year, 2008, marks the 120th anniversary of the founding of The Jewish Publication Society, making the Society the oldest non-profit Jewish publisher in North America. JPS is also the only non-partisan, multi-denominational, non-profit publisher of Jewish books in English in the world. We have had a glorious history, producing significant Jewish books for the broad spectrum of the Jewish community—and for a much wider audience as well. And we have every intention of carrying on this tradition far into the future.

However, something has changed. Book publishing is now an industry in turmoil. The internet has challenged the way that publishers acquire, produce, market, and distribute books. Books themselves find themselves competing for attention, especially from young people. People nowadays learn and amuse themselves in many ways—e-books, audio books, movies, TV, distance learning, video games. A printed volume between two covers is no longer a slam-dunk for a leisure activity of choice.

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