September 30, 2013: Excitement is mounting about the redesign of the Bulletin and our new website

By Michael Regenstreif

Anticipation continues to mount in the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin office about the upcoming launch of our redesigned print edition and our new dynamic website scheduled to make their debut with the community-wide Chanukah edition to be published November 25.

The mock-ups we’ve been seeing from the team headed by award-winning designer David Berman are exiting and will revitalize the look of the newspaper.

It’s also very exciting that the Bulletin will be fully available online for the first time. For some years now, studies have shown that many readers have drifted away from traditional media in favour of online sources – particularly younger readers, in essence the emerging generation whose engagement has been prioritized by such organizations as the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.

The Bulletin has been an important presence in Ottawa’s Jewish community for 76 years, and we believe that this combination of a fresh look, the addition of a dynamic online edition, as well as engagement through various social media will help ensure our efficacy for many more years to come.

Plans are also coming together for a special launch event to celebrate the redesign of the print edition and new website. We’re inviting everyone – Bulletin readers and advertisers, representatives of community agencies and organizations, etc. – to join us at the Federation’s members meeting on Tuesday, November 26, 7 pm, at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre.

We’ll have a guided tour of the redesign and the website and we’ll hear from several speakers, including such noted Bulletin columnists as Jason Moscovitz, Mira Sucharov, Barbara Crook and me.

Speaking of columnists and the emerging generation, have a look at Ilana Belfer’s initial Emerging Gen column on page 21. Ilana begins a discussion in the column that we hope all – particularly members of the community in their 20s and 30s – will participate in.

Ottawa bus tragedy

The last production day before the Bulletin goes to press is always busy in our office and this issue – which we were hustling to finish two days earlier than usual due to the advent of Sukkot – was no exception. On final production days, we tie up loose ends, make final corrections, and I sit down to write the editor’s column – invariably the last thing that goes into each edition of the Bulletin.

Just as we were settling into the office on that morning – September 18 – breaking news came of a horrible and tragic bus and train collision in Ottawa that left at least six people dead and many more injured. We quickly learned that among the injured was at least one person who is active in the Jewish community.

The accident occurred near the Fallowfield transit station in Barrhaven, when a double-decker bus heading downtown on OC Transpo route 76 hit a Via Rail passenger train en route from Montreal to Ottawa and Toronto. Apparently, for a reason not yet determined as I write just a few short hours after the accident, the bus crashed through the lowered barrier at the railway crossing and struck the train.

While most of us routinely travel hither and yon in cars and on buses, trains and airplanes without incident throughout our lives, random events like this accident are a reminder of the delicate balance in which life always hangs. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those affected by this tragic event.

February 9, 2009: Rising to the challenge of these hard times

By Michael Regenstreif

Finally, after 52 long, cold winter days, the OC Transpo strike ended when the City of Ottawa and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279 agreed to binding arbitration on January 29.

However, because the buses had not been serviced, maintained or inspected for almost two months, it was announced it would take until February 9 – the publication date of this issue of the Bulletin – for the first busses to start rolling again and up to 14 weeks, almost twice as long as the strike itself, for full service to be restored to all routes.

The further you are from the city centre, the longer it will take before you see a bus at your stop. Hardest hit routes could eventually be without bus service for more than five months.

The strike could not have come at a worse time. We were already into the worst global economic crisis since the Depression and what has turned out to be one of the harshest winters in decades.

It was only the threat of federal legislation after more than seven weeks of strike that led the city and the union to the last-minute agreement to submit to binding arbitration. However, it was pretty clear from the outset of the strike that positions of both the city and the union were so entrenched that legislation or arbitration would be the only means to the end. Given the obviousness of the situation, they should have gone to arbitration from the get-go and avoided the inconvenience – as the mayor put it – to all transit users and the motorists who normally share the roads, and the very real suffering for far too many people, including our most vulnerable.

The Jewish community is generally perceived as relatively affluent. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t significant poverty and hardship in the community. Long before the current crisis, it was estimated that about 17 per cent of Canadian Jews, including about 20 per cent of Jewish seniors, live below the poverty line. The current crisis has exacerbated the situation, and will continue to do so.

A little over a year ago, Barry Fishman wrote in this space about the problems the Ottawa Kosher Food Bank, headquartered at Congregation Agudath Israel, was having just in keeping up with the demands of serving its already established clientele. You can be sure the demand will increase as unemployment rises during this economic crisis.

The situation for some Jews in Ottawa is so dire that they live on the streets. We have a story on Pages 1 and 2 by Cynthia Engel about the kosher lunch Jewish Family Services (JFS) served January 27 to 200 homeless people at Beth Shalom Synagogue.

At the lunch, Rabbi Arnold Fine, who works with the JFS StreetSmarts program to provide chaplaincy services to Ottawa’s homeless, estimated there are about 50 homeless Jews living on Ottawa’s streets and that several more were newly identified that day. When Barry wrote that column in late-2007, the StreetSmarts estimate was that 10 to 12 homeless Jews lived on the streets in Ottawa. Clearly, things have already worsened.

Some of you may be shocked to learn there are homeless Jews living in Ottawa. These are not people worried about making the payments on second or third cars; they’re people worried about whether they’ll have a second or third meal every day.

By the way, organizers and volunteers expected to serve at least double the number of about 200 who turned up for the lunch. But, without bus service, many of the homeless beyond walking distance of Beth Shalom could not get there.

All of these problems, the effects of the bus strike, the economic crisis, poverty – in the Jewish community and in society at large – are symptoms of the hard times we’re living in.

As Jonathan Freedman discusses in the Federation Report on Page 6, the economic crisis has a very real impact on the community’s ability to help our most vulnerable just as more people are becoming more at risk. Jonathan points out that the community has always risen to the challenges of difficult times and, as he says, it’s up to us to do so now by digging deeper into our pockets and/or donating that great human resource, volunteer time, so that programs and services can be maintained and expanded to meet the greater demand.