By Michael Regenstreif
This is it. The final issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin to be published with the “old” design we’ve had for many years. Next issue – the November 25 community-wide Chanukah edition – will mark the debut of our new, fresh print design.
Virtually all newspapers go through a redesign process from time to time. Having read through back issues going back to 1937, I’ve been able to see how our look has been modernized and refreshed from era to era – both in look and content. The design we’re retiring with this issue was itself once new and fresh and was a big step forward from how the Bulletin looked 15 or so years ago.
But we’re ready for change, and we think you’re going to like the new look when you see it in a couple of weeks.
In addition to the new look, we’re also looking at more in-depth coverage and analysis of some of the important issues facing our community. One story we’re working on, for example, is a look at the issues and challenges currently being faced by Ottawa’s various synagogues.
We’re also completely redoing our website at ottawajewishbulletin.com. Until now, our site has typically included just a couple of articles and a long list of the headlines from the edition’s stories and columns.
The new ottawajewishbulletin.com will be a dynamic site that will include – for the first time – an online version of the complete print edition of the Bulletin. With an Internet connection, you’ll be able to read the paper on your computer or tablet, and we’ll feature additional content like important breaking news and regularly updated news stories and features from Israel and around the Jewish world – much more content than we’ve ever had room for in the print edition. You’ll want to check the site regularly for new stories.
The Bulletin will remain a forum for our Jewish community to engage on issues of interest and concern. As always, we’ll continue to welcome your letters and guest columns. This is your community newspaper, so let your voice be heard.
It’s been a long process. It all started about two years ago with discussions at the Jewish Federation of Ottawa’s Communications and Community Relations Committee. That led to the creation of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin Review Committee, which undertook a thorough review of the paper – including an extensive readers’ survey. It was the committee’s report and recommendation to the Federation Board, more than a year ago, which led to the award-winning team at David Berman Communications being commissioned to redesign the print edition and create our new website.
And, we’ve created new Facebook and Twitter accounts. Like us at facebook.com/ Ottawajewishbulletin or follow us at twitter. com/@JBulletin to stay up to date with the print and web editions of the Bulletin.
So, we’re ready to celebrate this milestone in Ottawa Jewish Bulletin history. Please join us on Tuesday, November 26, 7 pm, at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre for our launch event at the Federation’s members’ meeting. The team from David Berman Communications will give us a guided tour through the redesign and new website and you’ll hear some brief remarks and comments from columnists Jason Moscovitz, Barbara Crook, Mira Sucharov – and me.
Something else that hasn’t changed in many years at the Bulletin are our subscription rates despite constantly rising printing and mailing costs over the past decade or more. They will have to go up in 2014, but we are offering an opportunity to subscribe or extend your current subscription for up to two years at the old rate. Act soon, though, because the offer expires at the end of 2013.
See the ad on page 22.
Kashrut in Quebec
There is a JTA story on page 8 that asks whether resurging nationalism will lead to another exodus of Jews from Quebec. Tensions have risen recently in the wake of the minority Parti Québécois (PQ) provincial government’s proposing its Charter of Quebec Values.
Now, we’ve received a report that François Gendron, Quebec’s agriculture minister, is planning to introduce new regulations governing kosher and halal meat production. This would be over and above the regulations already enforced across Canada by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
This is worrisome because the PQ said in 2012 that the slaughter of animals for halal meat production “slams directly against Québécois values.”
Lawrence Bergman, the only Jewish member of Quebec’s National Assembly, pointed out that the PQ statement was ethnic bashing and that it was “odious, unacceptable and reeks of intolerance.”
