I FOCUS I
The New Man
Of Moment
Hershel Shanks, who has
taken over Moment
magazin4 wants to give
new direction to the
publication that
Leonard Fein founded
JAMES DAVID BESSER
Washington Correspondent
ershel Shanks is
a tough man to interview. He exudes a kind
of peremptory self-confidence, and his
single-mindedness can be intimidating;
this is a man who knows what he wants,
and doesn't doubt for a minute how to pur-
sue it.
Which is probably an asset in Shanks'
current position. A Washington lawyer and
publisher of two widely respected
magazines dealing with the religious
heritage and archaeology of Israel, he is,
with the September issue of Moment
magazine, about to dive headlong into the
treacherous waters of Jewish general-
interest publishing.
In a business where red ink is the norm
and financial backing from some organiza-
tion is almost a given, Shanks expects to
make his new publication turn a profit
within two years.
As the new driving force behind the on-
ly independent Jewish monthly with a na-
tionwide audience, Shanks plans to remake
the journal of thought and opinion that in-
tellectual Leonard Fein founded 12 years
ago into a lively, undoctrinaire, and—above
all—self-sustaining publication.
If he has his way, Moment will appear
on the coffee tables of Jews of every
theological and political persuasion. The
new Moment, he insists, will be
stimulating without being pretentious or
strident. And, he suggests, it will avoid the
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FRIDAY, OCT. 9, 1987
ponderous writing and editing that
characterize the "thought journals" that
comprise the backbone of the Jewish
publishing world.
He is not unaware of the obstacles that
await him. "Of course this is a risky pro-
position," he says. "It's very scary. The fact
is, most Jewish publications lose a great
deal of money; if it wasn't for the organiza-
tions that support them, they'd be out of
business. We expect to give Moment about
two years to become self-sustaining. If it
doesn't make it, I'll admit defeat, and
maybe someone else can step in and make
it work."
The first issue of the old Moment hit the
stands in 1975. Fein and Elie Wiesel were
the original editors. Wiesel left after a
short time, but Fein remained on the job
until the Shanks takeover.
From the beginning, the magazine was
regarded as a kind of liberal alternative to
Commentary, the popular voice of Jewish
neo-conservatism. "It was simply an effort
to give voice to an intelligent, liberal
perspective," Fein says now. "De facto, it
did fill some of the vacuum that was
created by Commentary's lurch to the
Right."
Magazine analysts rated it as well edited
and well written. But despite its reputation
as a quality magazine, it never carved out
a distinct niche for itself in the spectrum
of Jewish publications, and its manage-
ment was never able to staunch the flow
of red ink.
And Moment, unlike its arch-rival Com-
mentary, could not sustain this fiscal
hemophilia indefinitely. Commentary is
put out by the publishing arm of the
American Jewish Committee; Moment,
although legally a non-profit operation, has
always been independent of organizational
support. By last year, Moment was losing
almost a quarter-million dollars a year.
Enter Hershel Shanks. Shanks is a suc-
cessful, Harvard-educated lawyer. But the
force that seems to define his life is his in-
terest in a certain brand of Jewish
journalism.
In 1972, after working with the Justice
Department and in his own practice, he
took a year off and visited Israel with his
young family, where he became interested
in archaeology.
"I published a book while I was over
there on the archaeology of Jerusalem; it
was very well reviewed in the Jerusalem
Post. That gave me a boost. When I came
back I wanted to keep my hand in; I didn't
want to go back to Israel as a tourist.
Everyone else would be working, and what
would I do during the day?"
Hershel Shanks does indeed give the im-
pression of being the kind of man who
could not tolerate being a mere tourist, or
going on vacation without his briefcase.
He went to the editor of B'nai B'rith