BIOGRAPHY

Jonathan Kaufman is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer and editor. He is currently working as a Senior Editor for The Wall Street Journal in Washington, D.C., having helped oversee political coverage for the 2008 campaign, and writing Page One stories on campaign issues and trends. 

Mr. Kaufman has worked for the Journal since 1995.  He began his career as a Senior Special Writer focusing on Page One feature stories on race and class, diversity, the workplace and management issues.  It was in this capacity that he was bestowed the National Headliner Award, the UNITY award, and other prizes.  In 2002, Mr. Kaufman became the China Bureau Chief, overseeing coverage of China’s economic and social transformation and its growing political and economic impact on the United States and the world.  He supervised reporters in 4 cities:  Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Taipei.  Mr. Kaufman then moved on to serve as the Deputy Page One Editor, as which he launched and oversaw Page One of the Journal’s new Saturday Weekend Edition which is now the largest circulation weekend paper in the country. 

Prior to joining The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Kaufman worked for The Boston Globe as Berlin Bureau Chief, covering such topics as the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the emergence of free markets and democracy, the rise of right-wing violence in Germany, the political and economic integration of the European Union, and the break up of Yugoslavia including the Serbian-Croatian war.  As a reporter for the Globe, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for a series on racism and job discrimination in Boston and five other cities. 

Mr. Kaufman has written two books: A Hole in the Heart of the World: Being Jewish in Eastern Europe which was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and Broken Alliance:  The Turbulent times Between Blacks and Jews in America  which won the National Jewish Book Award and the American Jewish Committee Award for Non-Fiction.

Christopher Lehman-Haupt in The New York Times praised Broken Alliance as “perceptive and even-handed. . .extraordinary perspective.. One is grateful for Mr. Kaufman’s graceful analysis.” Juan Williams in the Washington Post wrote: “A first-rate job of recounting telling episodes that reveal the emotional dimensions of the great divide now separating blacks and Jews.”  The book was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show. Reviewing A Hole in the Heart of the World, Francine Prose wrote in Newsday: “Carefully researched. . . . Profoundly chilling. . . family histories so eventful they keep us reading with unflagging interest."

Mr. Kaufman holds a B.A. in English from Yale University and an M.A. in Regional Studies – East Asia from Harvard University.