75 years and counting

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

For 75 years, the Jewish Western Bulletin has been the newspaper of the British Columbia Jewish community. While other publications have foundered, the Bulletin carries on. With the support of the community, it has managed to survive and even thrive.

I have owned the Jewish Western Bulletin for six years, been involved with it for seven – only about nine per cent of its life. Abraham Arnold, publisher and editor from 1949 to 1960, led the paper for 15 per cent of its 75 years, and Sam and Mona Kaplan were at the helm, in one form or another, from 1960 to 1999, more than half of the paper's history. As well, there are the dedicated committees of the Vancouver Jewish Community Centre that initiated and ran the paper from before it became the Bulletin in 1930 until Arnold. I am but a small part of a history much larger than me – a point further illustrated by the fact that one of the JWB's staff, senior account executive Ron Freedman, has worked at the paper for longer than I have been alive.

While it is humbling to acknowledge that my term at the Bulletin has been relatively short, the realization highlights the great responsibility that I have the opportunity to uphold. As I have been looking through past issues for material for this week's Jewish Western Bulletin – the final edition to bear this soon-to-be historic name – I have found a renewed purpose in my role as owner/publisher; a purpose derived from the paper's long tradition. It is a mission with which Kyle Berger, Pat Johnson and I started when we bought the Bulletin from the Kaplans in 1999: to reflect and record the diverse views of the entire Jewish community – secular to religious, gay or straight, single or married, Ashkenazi or Sephardi, and everything and everyone in between. It is no small task and, no doubt, there will always be people, myself included, who find the paper falling short of this goal. But it is this constant drive to succeed in this manner that will keep the newspaper prospering with the complex and venerable community it serves.

While Pat and Kyle have chosen to serve the community in other ways – Pat as a contractor with Canadian Jewish Congress and Kyle as sports co-ordinator at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver – they continue to write for the paper and, most importantly, to be major players in the community. The back issues of the Bulletin show the similar dedication of countless community members who have worn countless numbers of hats in their years and years of community work. It is common to find people who have been president of their synagogue, treasurer of an organization, co-ordinator of a gala event and organizer of a capital campaign. What's particularly satisfying is that these people passed their dedication on to their children – surnames that graced the Bulletin's pages in the 1930s continue to do so to this day.

The path to the present hasn't always been smooth. The community has been affected by world events as much or more than any other: the Depression, the Holocaust, the birth of the state of Israel, Canada's and British Columbia's centenaries, the continuing struggles for Israel's survival and Jews' continuing fight against anti-Semitism. All of this history, plus weddings, b'nai mitzvah, graduations, parties, synagogue openings, annual general meetings, funerals, unveilings and other moments are documented in the Bulletin. There are times when the community has had to band together to save from financial ruin such organizations as the Jewish Community Centre, Vancouver Talmud Torah and, notably, the Bulletin. Though unfortunate that the survival of various kinstitutions has been in danger, it is comforting to know that, in most instances, the community has come through.

As I near the beginning of my 14th year in Vancouver, I am honored to have spent half that time at the Bulletin. The staff has remained remarkably consistent during this period and, for that, I am thankful, as a businessperson couldn't ask for more dedicated, loyal, hard-working and fun people to work for them. Add to that the paper's subscribers, many of whom have been buying the paper for decades. And add to that, the extraordinary number of businesses who have advertised in the paper for 10, 20, 30 ... 70-odd years.

Without all of this support, without a vibrant Jewish community that has increased the paper's events listings from a few inches to six columns a week, the Bulletin wouldn't exist. But it does. It has for (more than) 75 years and, God willing, it will for another 75 years ... at least.

While the name and look of the paper will change next week, rest assured that the most important element will stay the same – this paper will always remain the Jewish community newspaper. Mazal tov to all of us.

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