David Twersky

David Twersky (; February 19, 1950 – July 16, 2010) was a journalist, Zionist activist, and peace advocate in Israel and the United States. He was an editor for The Jewish Daily Forward and The New York Sun and a leader of the American Jewish Congress.

Biography David Twersky was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, where he grew up in the left-leaning Sholem Aleichem cooperative housing project. He attended Ramaz School in Manhattan and was active in the Labor Zionist youth movement Habonim. He attended City College of New York. In 1974, Twersky made aliyah (emigrated to Israel) and helped to re-establish Kibbutz Gezer. Twersky died of cancer on July 16, 2010, at the age of 60 in his home in West Orange, New Jersey.

Journalism career In Israel, Twersky worked for the Labor Party's international affairs department, where he dealt with the Socialist International. He edited Shdemot, the literary journal of the kibbutz movement, and Spectrum, an English-language political monthly. Twersky served in an artillery unit during the 1982 Lebanon War. Another of Twersky's stories brought to light some views of Lani Guinier, a law professor whom Clinton had nominated to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights; those opinions were considered controversial and her nomination was withdrawn.

Following his death, colleague Amir Cohen, who had worked with Twersky at both The Forward and the New Jersey Jewish News, established the David Twersky Journalism Award in his memory. The award was initially presented to journalists at those two publications, recognizing work focused on Israel and Jewish political affairs. Twersky's children, Anna and Michael, served on the judges committee alongside Cohen. The first award was presented in 2012 to Andrew Silow-Carroll, Twersky's successor as editor of the New Jersey Jewish News. Subsequent recipients have included Larry Cohler-Esses and Jane Eisner of the Forward, Johanna Ginsberg of the New Jersey Jewish News, JJ Goldberg, Adam Langer, Danielle Berrin of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, and David Abitbol of Jewlicious — the last two recipients representing an expansion of the award beyond its original two publications.