Menachem Wecker is the executive editor (U.S.) at the wire service JNS. He has written about the arts, chess, culture, education, politics, and religion, among other subjects, for hundreds of publications, including Washington Post Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Houston Chronicle, Atlantic, Playboy, Columbia Journalism Review, artnet, Art Newspaper and Chess Life.
Photo by Nachama Soloveichik
A former U.S. News & World Report education reporter, who covered culture and religion as a freelancer for Houston Chronicle for nearly five years, Wecker has interviewed Mel Brooks about herring and has covered everything from origins of museum taxidermies to Zoroastrian dating.
His 2017 Playboy feature told of “Infiltrating the CIA’s Secret Art Collection,” and a 2019 Washington Post Magazine feature investigated the degree to which preeminent museums flag effectively which objects aren’t real.
He holds a master’s in art history from George Washington University and an English degree from Yeshiva University. '
For more than a decade, he was a member of the National Press Club (including serving as a board of governors member, freelance committee co-chair, and membership committee chair).
He is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), Religion News Association (RNA), and Education Writers Association (EWA).
Wecker holds two awards of excellence (2026, 2025) from the Religion Communicators Council; a first place (2025) and three third place (2024, 2021) Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism from the American Jewish Press Association; a first place (2023, National Catholic Reporter) and two second place (2020, EducationNext and Mosaic magazine; 2017, as part of an Atlantic team) awards from Religion News Association; an award for “best humorous contribution” (2019-20) from Chess Journalists of America; two Vivian Awards (2018, 2019) that recognize “extraordinary commitment” to the National Press Club; and seven first-, second-, and third- place prizes and honorable mentions from the Catholic Media Association in the categories of “culture, arts and leisure column” (2017-2020, 2015) and “social justice issues: dignity and rights of workers” (2017-18).
Wecker is co-author with Brandon Withrow of the 2014 book Consider No Evil: Two Faith Traditions and the Problem of Academic Freedom in Religious Higher Education. He has published chapters in Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader (Oxford University Press, 2024); Designing for Empathy: Perspectives on the Museum Experience(Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), Religion: Material Religion (1st ed., Macmillan, 2016) and Religion in Museums: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Bloomsbury, 2017).
Wecker, his wife Nachama, and their sons live in the Washington, D.C. area.
