So, why the new name?

Editorial

This week's paper is the inaugural issue of the Jewish Independent. The choice of a new name for the 75-year-old Jewish Western Bulletin was not easy and opinion will be divided as to whether the change is a good one. Here are some of the issues we considered in renaming the community's beloved JWB.

Originally, the Bulletin was a circular of the Vancouver Jewish Community Centre. Most people, when they hear the word "bulletin," think of a news flash or a one-pager that updates members of an organization on what's happening. The term doesn't reflect the scope of the paper as it has matured and expanded.

At 75, the Jewish Western Bulletin is the community's newspaper. It carries stories from around the world. It is read by more than 8,000 people every week in print and between 15,000 and 19,000 over the Internet every month. The publication has, in effect, outgrown its name.

In many ways, it has also outgrown the geographic portion of its name. While it is the British Columbia Jewish community's newspaper, the news within its pages is of events nation- and worldwide. The "western" adjective doesn't capture this international flavor. Nor does it capture the fact that many of the people who read the paper, electronically or in print, do not live in Western Canada, or even Canada, for that matter.

The one element that we kept of the Jewish Western Bulletin is the word "Jewish." Other North American Jewish publications and websites are choosing to not have the word "Jewish" in their names, opting for just "J," as in the J-Weekly of northern California or JDate, one of the many online Jewish dating sites. But we are proud to be the Jewish community newspaper and most of our content is directly or indirectly related to things Jewish. While we hope that people will refer affectionately to the paper as the JI, as they did with the JWB, we feel that it is important for the word "Jewish" to be part of the paper's formal name.

As for the other half of the new name, the word "independent" will be interpreted by various people in different ways. For us, it has positive connotations and conjures images of, for example, children who have grown up and left home. They are still strongly connected to their family, but are responsible for making their own decisions. They are able to live on their own and contribute to the world because of the wisdom and love imparted to them by their parents. We are no longer the bulletin, or child, of the JCC. We are "all grown up"; an important institution in our own right, serving the community as do dozens of other vital organizations.

Many people who choose not to subscribe to the Bulletin do so because they think the paper is subsidized by another large communal organization. Others think that they receive a free subscription when they join the JCC, even though the Bulletin's official ties to the centre ended some 45 years ago. Since 1960, the paper has been an independently run, privately financed entity, yet this is still not known to many people.

This fact matters because the community newspaper will fail if the community does not support it. Even if you don't read the entire paper every week, payment of your subscription allows the Bulletin/Independent to publish international and local stories, milestones, events listings, obituaries, death announcements and other news that keeps Jewish community members informed and connected. The paper also donates more than $30,000 annually to organizations and individuals in the form of event sponsorships and complimentary copies of the paper.

"Independent" means being free from the influence or control of others. In the context of the Jewish Independent, it means that the paper is free from the influence or control of one person or organization. If one communal organization controls the community newspaper, there is more likelihood that the paper will not truly be a community newspaper, i.e. organizations tend to have a very specific and narrowly defined mission and, therefore, may not print stories or letters that conflict with that mission. A newspaper whose objective is to reflect the diversity of the community – which is that of the Jewish Independent – is better able to service the majority of the community, not just a small portion of it. It is better able to remain objective and uphold such principals as freedom of expression and debate.

The first Jewish publication in Vancouver was the Vancouver Jewish Bulletin. After a brief hiatus, then two name changes over a period of five years, the paper was again called the Bulletin because people still clung to the old name. "Jewish Western" was added and the word "centre" was not used because the publishers/editors at the time wanted to reflect the broader range of the paper and take it "into an era of progress hitherto unknown."

The change to the Jewish Independent was made with a similar rationale. We truly hope that you like the name. If not, we still hold the rights to the JWB. In 2010, if we're still being called the Bulletin, we can reconsider our choice.

^TOP