The Jewish Independent begins its three-week summer break now, and we wish you a relaxing and rejuvenating time in the sun. You can stay in touch by visiting our website and, if you do not already, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. While we are away, we have a favour to ask – we would love it if you would help us identify some of the young people in our community who are doing amazing things.
The Independent is planning a Chai Celebration on Dec. 6, marking the 18th year of the current era of the paper’s almost nine-decade history. It has been 18 years since Cynthia Ramsay became publisher of the paper, and we are marking the occasion by recognizing a new generation of community leaders, movers, shakers, thinkers, doers and all-around awesome people under the age of 36 who are contributing to the well-being and growth of our community, Israel and/or working toward making the world a better place.
A central component of the Chai Celebration is the 18 Under 36 awards, and we are asking you to help identify 18 young people who deserve recognition in a variety of endeavours. Nominations will be reviewed by a panel and 18 individuals will be selected in categories that include philanthropy and volunteering, business and technology, education and continuity, arts and culture, health and wellness. (Additional suggestions are welcome.) Nominees must be residents of British Columbia and either be Jewish or be making positive contributions to the Jewish community or Israel.
In addition to identifying excellent nominees, there are more ways for you to be involved in this exciting celebration. We are seeking sponsors for nomination categories and awards, and for other components of the event. We are requesting silent-auction, raffle and prize donations.
You know that this is a challenging time for print media. The Jewish Independent is a vital community forum, a place that reflects and represents the diverse identities, ideas, denominations and issues that make our community what it is. We are able to do this because we are not a nonprofit organization that represents one group’s particular interests. We are a small business that strives to serve each and every organization and member of the community, and we depend on readers and advertisers – and those who have generously answered our occasional calls for donations – to do so.
If there are times when what you read in these pages challenges your assumptions or expands your horizons, or even unsettles you from time to time, then part of our mandate has been fulfilled. But, in addition to challenging assumptions and encouraging new ways of thinking about ideas ancient and fresh, the paper is also, we hope, a community message board, a few minutes a week with a trusted friend, an entertainment guide, a neighbourhood chat and more. We hope that you regard the paper as an important institution in our community.
We sometimes hear you say that you wish there were more pages in a given week. We wish that, too. The number of pages reflects the revenue generated through advertising. We want to offer you the best product possible and want to partner with community businesses and organizations to bring you the best reporting and most informative community news. It is advertising revenue that allows us to pay writers, meet rent, buy equipment, print the paper, mail and distribute the issue, and develop the digital components that allow us to advance in a changing media landscape. When revenues are lower, we must reduce our costs, hence, those smaller-than-average issues.
This December’s celebration is an invitation for our community to come together and support independent Jewish media in British Columbia – as well as to celebrate our community, enjoy a great show and have some fun. We hope you will be a part of it.
For more information, email Ramsay at [email protected]. To nominate someone you know under the age of 36 (as of Dec. 7, 2016) who deserves recognition, email Ramsay or message the JI via one of our social media platforms and tell us a bit about your nominee and why they should be the winner. And please spread the word – #18under36 is underway!
The Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, minister of justice and attorney general of Canada (MP for Vancouver Granville), at the Canada Day celebration in Douglas Park, which is in JI publisher Cynthia Ramsay’s neighbourhood. (photo from twitter.com/puglaas)
George Heyman, MLA for Vancouver-Fairview, was also at hand at the Douglas Park party. He is seen here speaking with David Berson, left, and Mary Gillis. (photo by Franco Pante)The JI’s Pat Johnson, right, helped represent the Regional Animal Protection Society in the Steveston Salmon Festival Parade on Canada Day. (photo by Alan Marchant)The JI’s Leanne Jacobsen (in the baseball cap) participated in the North Vancouver Canada Day Parade with her North Shore Dragon Busters teammates. (photo by Jonathan Ross)PADS puppy-in-training Pika, in the care of JI production manager Josie Tonio McCarthy, heads out to celebrate Canada Day. (photo by Josie Tonio McCarthy)
With gratitude and sadness, we share with readers the news that Alex Kliner’s Menschenings column will appear for the last time in this issue of the Jewish Independent. Alex is retiring and, while we are happy that he’s about to enjoy a well-deserved break, we’ll miss him.
After more than two decades of keeping our readers up-to-date with news, quips, culture, history, wordplay and trivia from the Jewish world, Alex has decided that the time has come to relax a little and give up the grind of a weekly column.
Alex has been a pillar of this newspaper and remains a pillar of this community, reflecting ourselves back to ourselves, with wit, Yiddishkeit and puns that he well knows are groaners. He has brought his unique character to these pages, built on the linguistic and comedic styles that are distinctively Jewish but which are also inimitably Klineresque.
Reading Alex Kliner’s Menschenings has always been like spending time with a friend – a gossipy friend, but in the best sense. (photo from Alex Kliner)
Reading Menschenings has always been like spending time with a friend – a gossipy friend, but in the best sense. Lashon hara never, ever found a place in Alex’s column. His stories were always positive and joyfully told. Like Alex in person, Menschenings has been a cheery respite amid the world’s sometimes woeful events.
Alex has been able to pack an enormous amount into each column, covering news that matters and nuggets that entertain. He often notes the passing of figures of importance to Jewish life, many of whom were unsung heroes in their fields but little known to the general public. Goings-on around town, important new works of literature, tidbits from showbiz with a Jewish angle: there have not been many limits to the Menschenings beat.
His columns have also been filled with kavods and kudos for local and international figures about whom readers may otherwise have known nothing. Mazal tovs for simchot, recognitions of landmark events, notes on new cultural diversions and businesses opening and closing. Through these many years, week after week, Alex has curated stories of ordinary and extraordinary people, distilling a huge range of events and personalities into a tight package that is a pleasure to peruse. His chatty style has made our community feel a sense of togetherness, as though even people we do not know are linked with us through a mutual friend.
Importantly, each week Menschenings has featured a member of the local community, often someone whose contributions to the smooth running of communal organizations or a local business are crucial yet uncelebrated, an artist being introduced to new audiences, an author, a chef, an athlete, any number of people we were better for knowing about through Alex’s introduction. He has often been the first to identify rising stars in the local arts scene and there is no gauge to measure the careers he has helped along the way.
For 21 tireless years, and just two columns short of 1,000, Alex has been an irreplaceable and beloved voice of this newspaper and the community we serve. Together with Elaine, whose name has appeared frequently in Menschenings as a muse and a foil – El-Al, as they are collectively known – Alex has attended more community events, concerts, plays and other events than the most dogged culture vultures.
Thank you, Alex, for everything you have done to help build this community and tell our stories. Your name is, appropriately, inextricably connected with the word mensch.
Editorial in the Jewish Independent’s predecessor, the Jewish Western Bulletin, March 20, 1931.
The JI spoke with four friends of the newspaper from longtime Vancouver Jewish community families about the value and future of a Jewish community newspaper: Gary Averbach, Shirley Barnett, Bernie Simpson and Yosef Wosk. We asked each the same four questions and they replied by email. Their responses are printed below.
Not only are the community members interviewed here longtime Vancouverites but they have been involved in communal life for decades. The announcement on the right is from 1959, and comments on how a group of youth including Gary Averbach brought “AZA No. 119 back to its strength of a decade before.”
GARY AVERBACH
1. Is it important to have a Jewish community newspaper? If so, what are some of the reasons?
It’s difficult to answer this question because it seems so obvious that having a community newspaper is vitally important. We need a forum and a notice board for opinions and events in the community and, if there was not a publication dedicated to providing that forum and bulletin board, our community would suffer an irreplaceable loss.
2. What do you think the JI/JWB specifically has contributed (contributes) to the community?
For the most part, the JI/JWB has always been a bulletin board for the Jewish community, informing us about major – and minor – events and happenings. Whether they be reports on events that have occurred in the community – including the greater Canadian and worldwide Jewish community – or just informing us of births and deaths, b’nai mitzvahs and weddings, or local upcoming happenings. If not the JI/JWB, where would this come from?
3. In what ways, if any, is having a print version of value, versus only having an online publication?
For the next decade at least there will be a demand – albeit likely a decreasing one – for a printed version of the JI. That isn’t so much to provide for the very few people who still don’t or can’t use a computer, but to those of us who still prefer to hold a newspaper in their hands
4. Do you think that a Jewish community paper will be relevant for your grandkids’ kids?
I don’t even know what my grandchildren will be using to access their news in 10 years’ time, never mind what my great-grandchildren will prefer. But I’m fairly certain it won’t be print media as we now understand it. However, that in no way diminishes the need for a community forum and bulletin board giving a Jewish viewpoint on matters of local, national and international events – specifically items that directly involve Jews and, of course, Israel. So, whether it’s an online version, as we now know it, or some further refinement that we can barely imagine now, there will still be a need to inform our local Jewish community by the JI or some similar outlet.
SHIRLEY BARNETT
1. Is it important to have a Jewish community newspaper? If so, what are some of the reasons?
Among Shirley Barnett’s many community involvements is helping Vietnamese refugees come to Vancouver. This article is from June 1984.
Yes, for sure. I would like more reporting of issues in the community rather than just of events.
2. What do you think the JI/JWB specifically has contributed (contributes) to the community?
Exactly that – a sense of community and interaction.
3. In what ways, if any, is having a print version of value, versus only having an online publication?
For me, for sure. I like to read it over a morning coffee, and still cut and clip.
4. Do you think that a Jewish community paper will be relevant for your grandkids’ kids?
Probably not.
BERNIE SIMPSON
1. Is it important to have a Jewish community newspaper? If so, what are some of the reasons?
It is extremely important for the Jewish community, which is spread throughout the province, particularly the Lower Mainland, to have a Jewish community newspaper. There is no question that the viability of printed media has been affected by easy access to online papers, however, it is noted that just about every ethnic community in British Columbia still has printed media, which is read primarily by the older generation.
This article from 1959 is but one of many recording Bernie Simpson’s participation in Habonim and other community organizations, including the Jewish Western Bulletin.
For example, in the Indo-Canadian community there are at least one dozen papers, half of which are in Punjabi. However, two of the most prominent papers, the Voice and the Link, have been in existence for more than 30 years, and are able to attract substantial advertising and are thriving within the community.
The Korean community has at least six papers, primarily in Korean. The Vietnamese community has at least four papers. The Chinese community has a countless number of newspapers, which attracts readers from the various regions from where the Chinese community has come, including Taiwan, Mainland China and Hong Kong.
Admittedly, however, those communities have far more significant numbers than the Vancouver Jewish community, and that may be the reason why those papers are more economically viable.
The Jewish community newspaper, by definition, helps promote a community by giving news as to various events that are happening, not only in Vancouver but in outlying areas.
It is also a vehicle to announce important fundraising activities and to give proper recognition to those who are honored in the community.
The reporting of international news particularly as it relates to Israel is important, and also the editorial content. I believe that we are fortunate in having editorial content that is objective. The letters to the editor, by and large, are articulate and represent, on occasion, a different view than the mainstream Jewish community may have, particularly with regards to Israel, and this view should be welcomed as it serves as a catalyst for thoughtful thinking on sensitive subjects.
The stature of the Jewish community would be diminished considerably in the eyes of the non-Jewish community if there was not a Jewish community paper. There is still the view that the Jewish community is well organized, speaks with one voice on contentious issues, is socially active in liberal causes and even responds to tragedies throughout the world, and I would think that the image of the community will be tarnished considerably if a community paper did not exist.
2. What do you think the JI/JWB specifically has contributed (contributes) to the community?
To a certain extent this question is partially answered by my response to Question 1.
I believe that this paper helps keep the community focused and together, and it takes into consideration all aspects of the political spectrum as it relates to the three levels of government and objectively reports what is happening in Israel.
We are indeed fortunate to have the publisher (working with various editors), who is an outstanding journalist as is evident by the many awards that the Jewish Independent has won.
If it would happen in the future that the Jewish Independent did not exist, then that void very well could be filled with a community publication that lacks the objectivity that the present Jewish Independent has. For a brief period of time several years ago, such a paper did exist, and it was quite clear what the agenda of that paper was. In the Jewish Independent’s small way, it does help the debate with regards to the peace process in Israel between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the concept of a two-state solution.
3. In what ways, if any, is having a print version of value, versus only having an online publication?
I think, at this point, the majority of the readership are still of the generation where they don’t naturally gravitate every day to their computer or their mobile to see what news comes out this week in the Jewish Independent.
Longtime members of the community have had ingrained in them that towards the end of the week, the Jewish Independent will arrive. It often stays around the house until the next edition. I would think also that it would be harder to get advertising revenue if you’re only online.
4. Do you think that a Jewish community paper will be relevant for your grandkids’ kids?
Frankly, I’m not terribly concerned about the answer to that question, nor is it really relevant to the present situation. I am a senior member of the Jewish community now; my grandchildren are 6, 3, 2 and 1. It’s impossible for me, who on my best of days has difficulty directing my attention to the immediate past, to focus on whether the paper will be relevant for my grandkids’ kids, which would be around 30 years in the future.
I don’t think that we should be too concerned about that question, but what we should be concerned about is how we can make the Jewish Independent more economically viable.
One obvious answer is an increase in subscriptions. Perhaps, an active volunteer campaign could be conducted by members of the community to try to sign up more subscribers. This will make it easier to get advertising revenue.
It may be that there should be “an advisory board” set up to advise the present publisher as to how to make the paper more attractive to advertisers and to readers.
There is a great deal of talent within the Jewish community (well-known reporters who are still active, retired reporters with national papers, etc.); this is a resource that perhaps should be called upon.
Also, an advisory committee of individuals – businesspeople – can lend help financially, if the situation arises.
RABBI DR. YOSEF WOSK
1. Is it important to have a Jewish community newspaper? If so, what are some of the reasons?
Yosef (“Jerry”) Wosk’s decision to donate funds to Vancouver Talmud Torah on the occasion of his bar mitzvah in 1962 drew the attention of editor Sam Kaplan.
Yes, I feel it is important to have a community newspaper. It helps to gather and focus information about the extended family that is the community. It covers diverse topics, such as social events, politics, education, births and deaths, special interest groups, as well as emotional and intellectual concerns.
2. What do you think the JI/JWB specifically has contributed (contributes) to the community?
The newspaper has tried to be a neutral newsgathering and dissemination site. It carries articles that represent the full spectrum of the community, thereby fostering information and conversation.
3. In what ways, if any, is having a print version of value, versus only having an online publication?
The value of a print edition is that it can be read on Shabbat, it is easily accessible to everyone, including technophobes. It is always open and easy to read. Articles can be cut out and distributed. Having a hard copy on your desk or table gives it an immediate physical presence and material voice. In addition, a newspaper or magazine laying around in a public common area or even in a private home will attract readers who may not open an electronic device and search for a particular media address. The electronic edition may provide a number of supplementary links and also be available through a quick search, but it does not negate the value of a printed edition.
4. Do you think that a Jewish community paper will be relevant for your grandkids’ kids?
Who knows? However, newsgathering and dissemination in one form or another has always been of interest to the human condition and, so, I project that a community newspaper will still maintain its value in the future.
A couple of years ago, somewhere between the family-sized bag of Miss Vickies chips (190 lb Kyle) and the Trader Joe’s Edamame Crackers (165 lb Kyle), something triggered inside of me that led me to one of the most profound personal discoveries of my adult life.
It had little to do with the weight loss itself. Losing 25 lbs in two months wasn’t the result of some magic pill, any as-seen-on-Dr. Oz diets, or by bathing in ice water 20 minutes each day (though you could actually lose weight that way). I simply learned how calories worked and decided to see how it would apply to my life. That basic exercise led to a fast education, a welcome (and still developing) change in some key areas of my regular diet, a commitment to fitness and voila: a fitter, healthier me.
I didn’t see that weight loss as anything more than an isolated, solitary accomplishment. Until I stood in front of a mirror and stared into the eyes of a man who, long before then, believed and accepted that he would never have the will power, focus or determination to drop that extra 20-30 lbs of fat. I had proved that S.O.B. wrong! And that changed the game for me.
That kick to the groin of the demon I now refer to as “Complacency” opened my mind to a whole realm of possibilities I had previously written off or accepted as limitations in my world. I suddenly became aware of the many walls I had subconsciously erected around me as safety mechanisms.
With the gusto of Ronald Reagan, I began to tear down those walls. Within the next year I set my mind on accomplishing more fitness goals, kicked off my life-long desire to learn to speak Hebrew, created the Berger With Fries blog just so I could write the way I wanted again, revitalized my approach to my home life, parenting and my job, learned to juggle a soccer ball and do a handstand (in no particular order). Every single aspect of my life had become open for re-interpretation, re-evaluation and re-definition.
Why? Why the heck not!?
I used to joke (kind of) that my life – married with two beautiful young daughters – was pretty much locked in for the foreseeable future. Meaning that, other than a few more grey sprouts, 35-55 didn’t have much wiggle room for me in terms of possible major life changes. I had kids to love, job stability to focus on and I was very busy following the cookie-cutter society in which I had been raised.
Today I realize how absolutely absurd and limiting that line of thinking was. It doesn’t matter where you are in life, what you are doing or what your status is. Show me a life filled with the pursuit of excitement and inspiration and I will show you a life without regret or any sense of time wasted.
That hunt is what this Berger Time blog is about. It is about challenging ourselves to look beyond the narrow path that’s laid out directly in front of us as life wizzes by. To ask the question: what if we could re-shape that cookie-cutter to whatever we want it to be that day? To boldly go where no one…… Ok, I’ll stop there. But that Star Trek way of thinking isn’t so bad!
We are going to have some fun, meet some interesting people, share some interesting stories, try out new things (permit me to be your guinea pig!) open our minds and step outside of our comfort zones in search of inspiration and excitement.
Some of you may be familiar with my work as a former regular and current freelance writer at the Jewish Independent (shout out to my fans at the Louis Brier Home and Hospital!). Being part of this publication will always be important to me as I appreciate the vital role it plays in the community.
I am excited to be back on a regular basis, on this beautiful new website, with this incredible opportunity to once again connect with the community and to boldly go where…
Kyle Bergeris a freelance writer and producer of the Berger With Fries health/fitness/entertainment blog. Follow him on Twitter @kberger16.
