Heritage receives 2 FPA awards

The Heritage Florida Jewish News received two awards, including one first place honor and one second place honor, at the Florida Press Association Annual Best Weekly Newspaper awards banquet July 26 in Orlando. The awards honor work published during 2023.

Marilyn Shapiro won second place in the Feature Story-Profile category for her article titled “What goes around eventually comes around,” in the Feb. 10, 2023, issue.

The judge’s notes stated “Comprehensive research enabled the writer to create an interesting and compelling feature profile that also served to educate. Nicely done.”

Shapiro profiled Dean Cromwell, a former University of Southern California coach of track and field. The field was named Cromwell Field in his honor but is now the Allyson Felix Field because of his dark history. No other media mentioned the name change.

Shapiro stated that Cromwell was an assistant coach for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and was one of the people responsible for the expulsion of the only two Jewish American athletes on the track and field team.

She brought light to his dark history, writing: “In 1936, he spoke at a Nazi-organized German Day celebration in Los Angeles, California. According to the American Jewish World, the venue was filled with swastika flags and people dressed as storm troopers. In his remarks, Cromwell said, ‘Oh boy, if I could only be that handsome boy Adolf [Hitler] in New York for an hour.’ He also effused that he did not see ‘a single colored man, woman or children [sic]’ during his Olympics time in Germany, adding he did not object if they decided to leave.

“In Judaism, there is an expression that reads ‘midah k’neged midah,’-measure for measure. One’s actions and the way they affect the world will eventually come to that person in ways one might not necessarily expect. Eighty-three years after Berlin, the past has caught up with Cromwell with the removal of his name at the field he coached.”

Christine Desouza won the first-place Sally Latham Memorial Award for best Serious Column for her “Don’t let anyone distort the truth” opinion piece, in the Dec. 22, 2023, issue. Heritage is running this op-ed again on page 5 of this issue.

Judges notes stated “ Unflinchingly direct in call to recognize the truth, a call to look good and evil directly in the eye and call each by name. You must choose.”

Interestingly, both of the winners’ topics were about antisemitism and Heritage is proud of its writers for speaking the truth and bringing it to light.