It’s a Mishpacha milestone, 1,000 issues week in and week out

It’s a Mishpacha milestone, 1,000 issues week in and week out. News, opinion, stories, features, recipes, entertainment and inspiration — it’s all there in your weekly package. Mark the occasion along with us, with a celebration of all things 1,000

Much More than a Magazine

On the eve of Mishpacha’s 1,000th issue, we challenged 10 editors and writers to share what Mishpacha means to them, beyond printed words on paper. The challenge: write about it in 100 words each; 1,000 words for our 1,000th magazine. Here we present you with an ode to Mishpacha in exactly 1,000 Words

1 

Mishpacha is... a bridge

Bassi Gruen, former managing editor of Family First

She approached between the first dance and dessert, a stranger with a warm smile.

“You’re Bassi Gruen?”

I nodded.

“I love your letters. I got such chizuk from that story about your son…” and she launched into a detailed recounting of an incident I barely remembered.

Then she related how touched she’d been when I’d quoted something from her grandfather’s sefer — a sefer she hadn’t known he’d written. She’d shared it with her extended family.

It was scary to have a stranger remember bits of my life better than I did. And also touching. We really are all one mishpachah.

2

Mishpacha is... the good in us

Yisroel Besser, Deputy Editor

I was writing about the tzaddikim at Relief Resources, and one of them shared something intriguing.

He said that when Mishpacha highlights a mental or emotional disorder, on Monday morning, their intake team hears from scores of people worried that they have this condition, insistent that they have the very symptoms they read about.

I repeated this to a wise rav who also found it fascinating — for a different reason.

“If the magazine has the power to influence people to think there is something wrong with them,” he said, “imagine the responsibility to tell people what is right with them!”

3

Mishpacha is... a miracle

Rachel Ginsberg, Associate Editor

I became an editor in the fall of 2007 and felt honored to be part of the Yom Tov Pesach team a few months later. The late nights, the adrenaline rush — we did it! Half a year later, after closing the Succos package, I had this niggling feeling that it was way more than us, and by the following Pesach, I knew.

When publisher Eli Paley congratulated us on another super Yom Tov package, I told him, “Eli, you need to thank Hashem ten times a day, because your amazing staff notwithstanding, this is totally siyata d’Shmaya.”

It still is.

4

Mishpacha is... responsible

Binyamin Rose, Editor at Large

“He’s insane.”

That’s one quote you never read in a profile we ran on Hugo Chávez, the late dictator of Venezuela.

That’s because I deleted it while editing the raw text of Mishpacha’s Hebrew-language article on Chávez. The quote was accurate — from a Jewish aide close to Chávez. I feared it would go viral, and if Chávez saw it, we could be jeopardizing the lives or welfare of Venezuela’s Jewish community of 25,000 who were trying to flee to safer lands.

Sensational or colorful quotes make for good reading, but once printed, you can’t ever take them back.

Responsibility matters.