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Letter to the community:
Saying Goodbye
The saying “don’t kill the messenger” probably
has its roots in Jewish tradition. Did you know that despite
the rules of lashon hara (gossip), members of the community
have a moral obligation to uncover and reveal issues of importance
to our fellow Jews?
In the Talmud (a transcription of the “oral” tradition
of the Jewish people), and explained much later by Rabbi Joseph
Telushkin in his book, Jewish Wisdom, it is written that the
ancient rabbis usually reserved great scorn for those who distanced
themselves from their brethren during crisis. “When the
community is in trouble, a person should not say ‘I will
go to my house and I will eat and drink and be at peace with
myself’.” And: “Our Rabbis have taught: When
Jews are in trouble and one separates himself from them, then
the two angels who accompany every person come and place their
hands upon his head and say, ‘So and so who separated himself
from the community shall not witness its deliverance’.”
(Babylonian Talmud, Ta’amit 11a)
Notwithstanding my university training and 20 years of experience
as a professional journalist, these are the words that have
informed my six years as editor of The Jewish Transcript. What
I have accomplished here has been in service of the community.
It has been an honor and a privilege to do this important work
and I am more than a little sad to say goodbye. But everyone
must move on someday and this is my time. I am ready to go back
to being a professional journalist and an amateur Jew.
Before I leave this job on Nov. 15, however, I claim editor’s
privilege to share my perspective one more time.
One of my favorite questions I’ve been asked repeatedly
over the years has been “Is The Jewish Transcript a real
newspaper?” I have been asked that question a lot —
by community members, by rabbis, by other journalists, by my
friends and neighbors. The answer I always give is yes, most
definitely, The Jewish Transcript is a real newspaper.
Is that answer accurate or just wishful thinking? When I left
a job I loved teaching college students about journalism to
become editor of our community’s newspaper, I bet my career
on that answer. In December 1996, a committee of community leaders
interviewed me for this job. I would not have said yes when
offered the position, if I hadn’t been assured that everyone
wanted The Jewish Transcript to be a real community newspaper
— especially our parent company, the Jewish Federation
of Greater Seattle. Make it a great paper, a real community
newspaper, Michael Novick told me, and the whole community will
benefit.
Isn’t The Transcript just a Federation newsletter? Very
few people would answer yes to that question, including Barry
Goren, who followed Novick into the job as head of the Jewish
Federation. Doesn’t the Jewish Federation approve everything
in the paper before it goes to press? No. As the owner of The
Jewish Transcript, the federation can do whatever it wants,
in terms of editorial control, but the federation staff and
volunteers have wisely chosen to stay out of the newsroom. This
enables Goren and the members of the Transcript board of directors
to say to people who have an issue with something that has been
published in the paper: Write a letter to the editor, we don’t
tell her what to publish.
No professional journalist would edit a newspaper that is run
any other way.
Every time The Jewish Transcript publishes a news story, there
is a chance that someone — or many people — won’t
like what they read. Some will feel that The Transcript shouldn’t
be writing such stories — like the time when the first
Jewish baby had two mommies or the in-depth series about the
local Messianic community. Others will have an issue with the
way a story was written or illustrated — such as the piece
about the impact of the Nisqually earthquake or the Israel rally
last spring outside the Federal Building. These are the kinds
of stories that real community newspapers write. I feel confident
and proud of our efforts to be a real community newspaper, and
we have won national and regional awards by doing so.
The story about the April 30 rally was the beginning of the
end of my tenure at The Jewish Transcript. It’s the story
that led some members of the Transcript Board to wonder if a
truly free press supported the missions of the Transcript and
the Jewish Federation — to build community. We talked a
lot about censorship and the First Amendment and we made some
progress, in my opinion, but I have concluded that the board
and I no longer see eye-to-eye about how this newspaper should
be run. So it’s time for me to step aside.
Most of you have long forgotten the rally story and others wish
they could, but the heated discussion about what happened that
day continues. And I believe that is a good thing for our community.
Under my guidance, this newspaper has covered every story of
importance to the Washington Jewish community. We have not avoided
telling a story because it is painful or divisive. That would
be against everything I have been taught as a journalist, and
most especially as a Jewish journalist.
Thank you to the community for giving me this rare and wonderful
opportunity to be editor of our 77-year-old newspaper. Even
if my name is but a footnote in our paper’s history, I
am proud of what we have accomplished.
—Donna
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