Efforts to revive the Jewish Quarterly are continuing six months after the literary magazine published its last issue.

The independent journal, founded by Jacob Sonntag in 1953, has published many of British Jewry’s leading writers over the years including Harold Pinter and Arnold Wesker.

But its spring and summer print editions have not appeared this year and its last editor took a new job in June.

For a number of months, the magazine’s website has posted the message, “We are experiencing some issues but hope to be up and running soon.”

Mark Goldberg, a trustee and former chairman of the Jewish Literary Trust, which publishes the quarterly, said that “we are very committed to the idea of getting back into business.

“We have been talking to two potential publishing partners”.

The  magazine’s last editor, DD (Don) Guttenplan, produced three issues before leaving to become editor of The Nation, the progressive American political and cultural weekly.

Shortly before talking taking on his new role, he said, “It is a shame that something that had been an independent Jewish voice for more than 65 years seems unable to sustain itself”.

The need for the Jewish Quarterly, he believed, was “greater than ever”.

His brief tenure proved controversial, when he was removed by the trustees after his second issue last October only to be reinstated shortly afterwards.

David Herman, one of a number of trustees who resigned at the time, said Mr Guttenplan’s first issue last July had been “one of the best issues in the history of the Jewish Quarterly”.

But he had had “reservations” about the second issue, believing that the combined effect of a number articles had unbalanced its coverage.

One article condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza, another dealt with the plight of young asylum-seekers in Israel and a third disputed that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn posed an “existential threat” to the Jewish community.

Mr Herman said that while it was proper for the magazine’s editor to want it to lead the debate on such issues, “it has to do so in a balanced way. You need to have different perspectives represented”.

When he heard that Mr Guttenplan had been reinstated as editor, he resigned from the trustee board.

But he said that the closure of the magazine would be “terribly sad for the Anglo-Jewish community”.

According to the Jewish Literary Trust’s last available accounts in 2017, it had an income of just over £34,000 but spent nearly £57,000, with assets of around £13,000.