The Jewish Chronicle, the world’s oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper and OpenDor Media, the global educational media company behind Unpacked, Unpacked for Educators, ConnectED, Amplified and a Jewish podcast network, announced a strategic partnership to expand how Jewish journalism and storytelling reach and educate audiences across generations and continents.
The partnership brings together two organizations that have earned trust with Jewish and non-Jewish audiences in different ways. The JC has spent more than 180 years documenting British Jewish life. OpenDor Media has spent the past seven years building a direct line to 18- to 34-year-olds, an audience that legacy Jewish media has struggled to reach. More than 27 million unique individuals engage annually with OpenDor Media’s content, its creator network has more than 10 million followers and it has relationships with nearly 80% of educators in non-haredi Jewish schools worldwide, along with a growing educator audience in non-Jewish schools.
Together, the two organizations will combine the JC’s editorial authority with OpenDor’s digital reach and production capability—giving JC readers deeper access to video and podcast storytelling and giving OpenDor’s largely U.S.- and Europe-based audience a stronger foothold in the United Kingdom.
“Our readers have always trusted us to tell them what matters in Jewish life. This partnership brings that trust together with OpenDor Media’s reach and expertise in video, podcast and long-form storytelling, formats where they’ve built something genuinely exceptional. It’s a real editorial collaboration, not a licensing deal and that distinction matters to us,” said Jo Bucci, CEO of The Jewish Chronicle.
“The JC has spent 185 years earning the trust of British Jewry. We’ve spent more than a decade mastering video and audio storytelling for Jewish life. Neither of us needs to build what the other already has. This partnership means readers get both serious journalism and the storytelling formats that bring history and identity to life for a generation raised on video and audio,” said Andrew Savage, CEO of OpenDor Media.
Expanding editorial collaboration across platforms
The collaboration will include several editorial initiatives:
- A shared content framework. OpenDor Media and the JC have mapped Unpacked’s video and podcast library against the JC’s core editorial themes so that JC readers can go deeper on the stories the JC is already covering, the moment they’re published. A dedicated “Learn More” feature is being built into the JC’s article pages to surface this content directly, with an automated content-matching capability in development to scale the approach over time.
- Cross-platform audio and video storytelling. Beyond text, the JC and OpenDor Media are exploring co-branded audio and video content—starting with a U.K.-focused Unpacked podcast episode currently in development and discussions underway on a recurring co-branded series.
- A quarterly opinion column. OpenDor Media will contribute a quarterly column to the JC’s opinion pages, anchored by executive vice president Noam Weissman—host of the podcast Unpacking Israeli History and a commentator on how Israel is taught and understood—who will write the majority of installments, with pieces from other senior OpenDor voices, as appropriate.
- Reciprocal reach. JC journalism will be featured in OpenDor Media’s international newsletter and shared with its social-media audience, while JC readers gain direct access to OpenDor Media’s flagship explainer and podcast content—a two-way exchange rather than a one-way content feed.
“The Jewish story is one of the most compelling stories there is, but it matters how it’s told. Too often it’s transmitted like an inheritance, something people receive without ever really claiming it, making it their own. This partnership and the bridge it builds between our two platforms, is a chance to make that story something people actively choose to participate in,” said Weissman, EVP of OpenDor Media.
The partnership comes during a period of change for Jewish media. Since Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitism has risen sharply across the United Kingdom and United States and independent research shows a widening gap between young Jews’ desire to understand their own history and identity and their access to the tools to do so.
The JC and OpenDor Media see this partnership as a direct response—pairing trusted journalism with the storytelling formats a new generation already relies on.
