By Michael Regenstreif
I’ve been in Ottawa, working at the Bulletin, for almost 16 months now. As a newcomer to the community, I kind of just plunged into working from the deadlines of one issue to the next, first as assistant editor, working with Barry Fishman, and then as editor when Barry had to go on disability in February.
Along the way, of course, I’ve had a chance to meet and talk with many people in the community. I meet new people – new, at least, to me – almost every day when they drop by the office, when I attend community events or go out to cover a story for the Bulletin or in the hallways of the Joseph and Rose Ages Family Building as people arrive for and leave the many programs and events taking place at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (SJCC).
Of course, though, there are so many more people I haven’t had a chance to meet yet, so I thought I’d take a few paragraphs to tell you about myself.
I was born in Calgary and spent parts of my childhood in Calgary and Vancouver before my family moved back to my parents’ hometown of Montreal when I was in high school in 1968. I lived in Montreal for almost 40 years before coming to Ottawa. I went to Jewish day schools in Calgary and Vancouver and then public high schools.
I went through the CEGEP system in Montreal, took some time off from school to work at journalism and arts administration, and then went back and got my BA in political science and my MA in public policy from Concordia University.
My father, who is now retired, was a Jewish community professional, so I’ve been around Jewish communal organizations all my life. I’ve even worked for some myself.
I spent four summers working at Camp B’nai Brith of Montreal and did two stints working with Hillel in Montreal in the 1970s and ‘80s directing their Golem Coffee House project.
As an editor and author, I’ve worked with a number of organizations, including Canadian Hadassah-WIZO, the Jewish General Hospital and the YM-YWHA in Montreal on magazine and book projects.
I first got into journalism as a music critic for the Montreal Gazette in 1975 and have been at it – sometimes full-time, sometimes as a sideline – ever since.
As a ‘Jewish journalist,’ I did general reporting and feature writing for the Canadian Jewish News in Montreal for nearly two decades.
I’ve done some other things along the way, but that’s basically the path that led me to the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin. It’s a newspaper with an incredibly rich history having served and documented Ottawa’s Jewish community for more than 70 years.
And I’m happy to be here.
As Ottawa’s Jewish community newspaper, the Bulletin fulfils a number of roles. We report the news of our own community and use the resources of JTA to report important and interesting stories from the wider Jewish world. We’re an outlet for all manner of Jewish agencies and organizations active in Ottawa to get their news out to the rest of the community.
If your organization has news, please make sure we know about it. If you’re presenting an interesting speaker, we may well want to cover the event as a news story.
And in our various columns we try to provide you with food for thought about issues of concern, amuse you with humour, give you some great recipes to try, and turn you on to books you may want to read (or avoid) or music or films you might enjoy (or want to skip).
Your letters to the editor are welcome if you’ve got something to say about what you read in the Bulletin or on an issue of concern to the community. We’re also open to guest columns.
I mentioned in the first paragraph that Barry Fishman went on disability in February. The most frequently asked question I get is, “How’s Barry?”
Barry continues to face up to the extremely difficult medical circumstances of ALS – Lou Gehrig’s Disease – with an awe-inspiring combination of determination, courage and dignity.
As editor emeritus of the Bulletin, Barry continues to be an invaluable source of guidance and advice as we strive to maintain, and build on, the standards he set during his tenure as editor. Most of what I’ve learned, and continue to learn, about how the Bulletin works, and about how it should work, and much of what I’ve learned about Ottawa’s Jewish community, comes from my ongoing conversations with Barry.
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