You’d have barely noticed it, but in a December 9th article in The Jewish Week, UJA Federation NY president Morris Offit reveals that Heeb’s funding has been yanked due to the magazine’s racy content:

While noting that “some describe us as ‘The Old Lady on 59th Street,’ ” he describes UJA-Federation as “a galvanizing force” that is entrepreneurial and energetic in supporting an array of creative projects in addition to the social-work agencies with which it is most identified.
Among the successful new programs UJA-Federation supports are Limmud NY, an annual transdenominational conference devoted to Jewish learning, and Sharsheret, an organization devoted to helping Jewish women with breast cancer.
One grant that ended recently was to Heeb, a Jewish magazine seeking to appeal to unaffiliated young Jews that was considered in bad taste by UJA-Federation officials for its sexual and other content.
“You have to take risks,” Offit shrugged.

In a letter to the editor this week, New York City philanthropist Barbara Dobkin and the Exec. Dir. of her family foundation, Nancy Schwartz Sternoff, write:

We regret the decision of the leadership of the New York UJA-Federation, as reported in Gary Rosenblatt’s article, to discontinue funding for Heeb magazine (“Offit: Mega-Philanthropists ‘Arrogant,’ ” Dec. 9). Was the brief support offered to this energetic and hip publication meant to appeal to the donors at “The Old Lady on 59th Street,” or was it meant to be a symbol of the federation’s fleeting attempt to open the door to a new generation of supporters?
Pity it doesn’t seem to have been the latter. Once again, the actions of the UJA-Federation belie its pledge to welcome diversity, youth and new talent.

Oh shapap!