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May 14, 2010
Making kids feel they matter
Community papers function to keep us connected to home base.
MIRA SUCHAROV
The article was short, but its two squat columns managed to contain 20 student names – enough to have several profile pages “tagged” two decades later on Facebook. The Winnipeg Jewish Post piece listed the Talmud Torah student winners at the St. John’s high school regional science fair. (Looking back, my favorite project title is “Which Gum Has the Most Sugar?” Back in 1984, nutritional labeling was a thing of the future.) I had the article tacked to my bedroom wall in Winnipeg until transferring my bulletin board, along with the rest of my life, to Vancouver in 1985.
That year, the media came to visit my school again – this time at Vancouver Talmud Torah, and this time the Jewish Western Bulletin. The reporter and photographer had come to document the Grade 7 class production of a musical adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang. My good friend Chana posed as a tuneful Jacob, pretending to be cowed by our Judaic studies teacher, Rabbi Maurice Myerowitz, who played the Hooded Fang with aplomb. Thus another piece of yellowing newsprint, containing a grainy black and white photo, made it to my bedroom wall before being immortalized in my teenage photo album.
A good community paper makes kids feel like they matter – when the stuff of high politics that dominates many larger news outlets hasn’t yet trickled down towards them. It also provides a record of institutional happenings, while trying to connect with individuals off the grid. Having a diversity of viewpoints represented helps immensely in achieving this. I, for one, am pleased that my opinions are valued enough to make it to the pages of the Independent, even when I sometimes go against the grain.
Not only is Jewish life covered by community papers, but also life’s endings. Obituaries and yahrtzeit reminders help connect us to our personal family past, and provide an opportunity to share in the sorrows and remembrances of others.
Five years ago, the Independent changed its name from the Jewish Western Bulletin. In a July 2005 editorial, the editors stated that the name was meant in part to reflect the maturing of an individual after he or she leaves home and is no longer dependent on parents (or, in this case, a particular organization, the paper having severed its official ties to the Vancouver Jewish Community Centre 45 years earlier.)
Similarly, reading a community paper can help keep you connected to your home city if or when you leave for other vistas. Keeping up with Jewish papers in Winnipeg and Vancouver helps link me to my two childhood/adolescent homes in those cities. And writing for the Independent – as well the Winnipeg Jewish Review and the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin in my current home – are labors that I relish. I would be deeply gratified to know that I have helped to foster community and connection for others, even if only via 800 words at a time.
Happy 80th to the Jewish Independent. Here’s wishing you many more years of documenting and creating community. Ad meah v’esrim (until 120) – and beyond!
Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is currently writing a book on nostalgia and political change.
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