Danielle Berrin is an American journalistfocused on matters of the Jewish community. She is known for her Hollywood Jew blog and her cover stories published in the Los AngelesJewish Journal, where she began working in 2007. Berrin has also appeared as a commentator on CNN and MSNBC and published work for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Yedioth Ahronoth, The Guardian and British ''Esquire.
Career
Berrin grew up in Florida, where she was a childhood classmate of murdered journalist Steven Sotloff. She graduated from the University of Florida, She began writing the Hollywood Jew blog in 2008. A consistent theme in her work, is her disappointment in the way Jews and Jewish culture are portrayed in Hollywood, which relies on stereotypes and shows a lack of understanding of Jewish culture. She says that despite her working environment in Hollywood, "I'm still more starstruck by rabbis than any Hollywood stars." Danielle has twice been awarded a Southern California Journalism Award for "best blog" in Los Angeles and has received additional honors for her personality profiles and columns. In 2016, Berrin's cover story, describing being harassed by Ari Shavit, led to his temporarily suspension from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Shavit, who viewed the incident as merely flirting, apologized to Berrin, saying "I apologize from the bottom of my heart for this misunderstanding. I did not mean to say anything unwelcome to Berrin." In response, Shelly Yachimovich wrote: "I don't know if Berrin accepted his apology, but I didn't... It's not like he accidentally stepped on somebody's toe." Berrin also saw Shavit's apology as 'absurd' and Shavit will take time off journalism. Berrin said about the purpose of her article: "It happens every day to women around the world, and we need to be talking about that, not about this one person in Israel." The director of the left-wing Haaretz newspaper and member of the paper's owning Schocken family, Hillel Schocken, caused outrage in Israel by claiming that Berrin had invented the content of her article on Shavit only in order to generate publicity.
