For 27 years, the Chicago Jewish Star showed up every other week on street corners and synagogues from Hyde Park to Highland Park, a plucky family-owned newspaper with ambitions to be a strong voice for the city’s diverse Jewish community.
Next week, its familiar green news boxes will be empty.
With circulation and revenue waning, the free, advertising-supported tabloid quietly folded last week, ending what co-founder Doug Wertheimer called Chicago’s last independent, for-profit Jewish newspaper.
“The advertising dried up,” said Wertheimer, 71. “It became a tighter and tighter operation until it was no longer feasible to continue with any kind of quality product.”
Put together out of his Skokie house, Wertheimer helmed the newspaper from its inception in 1991, serving as publisher and editor. His wife and co-founder, Gila Wertheimer, was associate and literary editor, and more recently, top ad salesperson.
The only other remaining full-time staffer was their son, Aaron Wertheimer, who served as assistant editor and columnist.
The Jewish Star won journalism awards and developed a loyal following. But it couldn’t survive the digital age.
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