Our team at Jew in the City was delighted to see Rachel Kovacs’ well-written and well-argued article, “The Case for Revisiting the Media’s Reflection of Orthodox Life and an ‘Unorthodox’ Woman” in last week’s Jewish Link (August 19, 2021). Her thesis is why Jew in the City was founded in 2007, and as the only nonprofit which pushes back at media bias against Orthodox Jews and Judaism, it is validating to see more and more people in our community taking this issue seriously.

Just one point of clarification: Kovacs mentioned “Project Makom” in the article as a place where former and questioning charedi Jews can find their place in Orthodoxy, but this branch of Jew in the City is now called “Makom.” Many people don’t realize that Project Makom was and has always been a division of Jew in the City. We recently rebranded so there is more clarity. The mission of our organization is to change negative perceptions of religious Jews and make engaging and meaningful Orthodox Judaism known and accessible. We have three branches which work towards this goal. The media (and original) branch of Jew in the City, which creates positive content and pushes back at negative portrayals of Orthodox Jews and Judaism is now called “Keter.” Project Makom has been renamed “Makom” and serves hundreds of charedi Jews who had negative experiences growing up religious and are looking for a positive place in Orthodoxy. Our third branch is called “Tikun,” and it takes feedback from Makom members and negative headlines from Keter and partners with rabbanim and organizations in order to prevent the systemic issues which feed work into our two aforementioned branches.