Jeff Weinstein

Jeff Weinstein (born September 8, 1947)[1] is an American critic, editor, fiction writer and union activist, best known as a former restaurant critic for the Village Voice, where he was also on staff from 1981 to 1995.[1][2] In 1982, he helped negotiate a Voice union contract that extended health insurance and other benefits, which the newspaper already provided to married couples and, as a matter of practice, to unmarried heterosexual couples, to same-sex couples.[3][4] The agreement was the second union contract in the United States, the first by a private company, and the first to be widely reported on, to offer same-sex couples these protections.[5][6]

Jeff Weinstein at the Village Voice Reunion on September 9, 2017

Early life and education

Weinstein was born and raised in New York City.[7] A type 1 diabetic since age 8,[8][7] he studied biology at Brandeis University, and did graduate work at the University of California, Riverside and the University of California, San Diego.[1][6] At UCSD, Weinstein was a member of the Radical Coalition, where he participated in the United Farm Workers lettuce boycott against Safeway.[6]

Career

Weinstein was hired to write restaurant reviews for the San Diego Reader when he was 25 years old, in 1972.[6] He quit in early 1973, because of articles the Reader published that he considered to be “sexist and racist crap.”[6] While primarily a nonfiction writer, Weinstein also wrote fiction in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, including the short story “A Jean-Marie Cookbook,” which won a 1979-80 Pushcart Prize,[6][9] and the novella Life in San Diego, which was published by Sun & Moon Press in 1983,[10] with illustrations by the artist Ira Joel Haber.[10]

After he moved back to New York, Weinstein worked as a restaurant critic for the Soho Weekly News and later joined the Village Voice as both a restaurant critic and as Senior Editor, overseeing pieces about visual art and architecture.[11][12] As a food critic, Weinstein is known for his uncommon prose style and perspective,[13] his interest in covering a variety of restaurants in their own particular cultural and socioeconomic contexts,[6][7] and his “roving intellectual appetite.”[13] In 1983, Weinstein helped found the National Writers Union, for which he served as East Coast representative to the Union's executive board.[1][14]

Weinstein collected his Village Voice restaurant column, “Eating Around,” into a book, Learning to Eat,[15] which Sun & Moon Press published in 1988.[15] During his tenure at the Voice, Weinstein also wrote a column about consumerism, entitled “Consumerismo.”[6][16]

From 1997 to 2006,[17] he was columnist and fine arts editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer.[18][19] He subsequently served as arts and culture editor for Bloomberg News,[17] and currently writes the LGBTQIA-related blog “Out There” on ArtsJournal.com.[1][20]

Personal life

Weinstein was partnered with the writer, critic and artist John Perreault from 1976[21][3] until Perreault's death in 2015.[22] The couple married in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 2008.[3] Since 2017,[23] Weinstein has been partnered with the writer and critic Daniel Felsenthal,[24] with whom he lives in New York City[24] and in Bellport, Long Island.[25]

Bibliography
  • Life in San Diego (Sun & Moon Press, 1983)
  • Learning to Eat (Sun & Moon Press 1988)

References
  1. "Jeffrey Weinstein".
  2. Cooper, Michael (1996-06-30). "MAKING IT WORK;Negotiate or Bust". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  3. Sipher, Devan (20 December 2008). "Jeff Weinstein and John Perreault". The New York Times.
  4. Deutsch, Claudia H. (1991-07-28). "Managing; Insurance for Domestic Partners". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  5. Noto, Anthony (October 13, 2015). "The Village Voice gets sold: A look at its storied past and the tumultuous present". New York Business Journal. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  6. "Jeff Weinstein, San Diego Reader and now Village Voice restaurant critic | San Diego Reader".
  7. "Food Critic Jeff Weinstein".
  8. "The not-so-sweet life". 24 August 1999.
  9. Henderson, Bill (1979). The Pushcart Prize, IV: Best of the Small Presses (1979-80 ed.). Yonkers, NY: Pushcart Press. pp. 185–202. ISBN 0-916366-06-5.
  10. Weinstein, Jeff (1988). Life in San Diego. Sun & Moon Press. ISBN 9780940650169.
  11. Richman, Phyllis C. (April 12, 1981). ""The Tables Have Turned"". The Washington Post.
  12. Men confront pornography. Michael S. Kimmel. New York, NY: Meridian. 1991. ISBN 0-452-01077-2. OCLC 23940119.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  13. "Learning to Eat by Jeff Weinstein".
  14. "US gets its first union for writers". Christian Science Monitor. 16 May 1983.
  15. Weinstein, Jeff (1988). Learning to eat. Los Angeles, Calif.: Sun & Moon Press. ISBN 1-55713-015-9. OCLC 19272379.
  16. Weinstein, Jeff (August 30, 1988). ""Amigo"". The Village Voice. p. 35.
  17. "Comings and goings". Artblog. 2006-02-01. Retrieved 2022-09-30.
  18. Hill, Ben (2011-05-27). "Hollywood Fringe - engine28 pop-up newsroom". www.hollywoodfringe.org. Retrieved 2022-09-30.
  19. "Jeff Weinstein's Articles at Salon.com". www.salon.com. Retrieved 2022-09-30.
  20. "Garage Sale Standard" (PDF). Moma.org. 2012. Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  21. Voice, Village (2015-09-09). "John Perreault, Artist, Critic, and Author, 1937–2015". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2022-09-30.
  22. Grimes, William (9 September 2015). "John Perreault, Art Critic (And Artist) Who Championed the New, Dies at 78". The New York Times.
  23. Felsenthal, Daniel (March 23, 2020). "The Quarantine Journal: The Dinner Party". The Point. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  24. "Alumnus Daniel Felsenthal '15 Awarded 2020-21 Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Fellowship Grant | School of the Arts".
  25. "A Review of Pricks in the Tapestry: By Jameson Fitzpatrick".
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