We have only been around 122 years but many dont know we exist. Many people who donate to the local Jewish Federation will get jay newspaper in their mailbox and not know why. They havent subscribed. Thats because they get it as part of their location. People ask what is a jewish newspaper. We look at ourselves as a way to understand the world through a jewish lens. But thats not an uncritical lens and it is not a uniform view. Its a way to give a sense of identity and belonging to the perfect 400,000 jews who live in the San Francisco bay area. We have here the third or fourth Largest Community in america depending on whose numbers you are looking at. We are so geographically dispersed that i as editor and steve as publisher, we look at j the newspaper as a way to give a sense of belonging, give a voice to the geographically and politically and denominationally disparity community. So interesting. I think a lot of people dont realize demographically speaking across the country, typically los angeles and new york are considered one and two in terms of jewish demographic population. Then it is the San Francisco bay area. Or south florida. Or south florida. Thats correct. Also we have lots of structures in our community. One is the Jewish Community federation that you mentioned earlier which is kind of like a Jewish Community united way that people donate to for the sake of services in the community. Then people as a benefit of the donation often times get a subscription to the newspaper. Correct. I wanted to turn it to steve for a little bit to talk about how we function at the number and how people newspaper and how people with find us. While we call ourselves a newspaper we are evolving. We use the term media outlet because there are many ways to access our content. We have a print edition that comes out twice a month. Thats the the traditional newspaper, been publishing for 122 years. We have a new website jweekly. Com that was just redesigned and we relaunched in january that is breaking news throughout the day, updated throughout the day. If you sign up for the friday e mail news letter of the top stories of the week, you will also get breaking news as it happens in the community. We are very proud of that because for this new website we were you were loading weekly content to the website every week. If you go to jbookly. Com two or three times a day you will see new, different stories. I think it is interesting in the ever changing world about how we live in an Information Age and communicate on many, many levels. There used to be and i think still is a print newspaper world, a bi line of all the news fit to print as a way of saying it captures everything of importance in the world to communicate to the community. In that framework, what is jewish news . What is jewish news . What is jewish art . Jewish film . A jewish book . Thats an on going conversation. For our publication, it would be we are very hyper local. Thats very interesting. I would say 20 years ago, people who read j would wait for the newspaper on friday or saturday morning for the news of what was happening in israel, for the news of what was happening in washington. Thats no longer true. That was 20 years ago. Today our function is much more what is happening in your synagogue . What is a new jewish film coming that you can see at the landmark cinema . What is a new jewish book you might want to be reading . What are Different Rituals being innovated in the peninsula or marin . Its a different role as technology has changed. We will take a break, but it seems interesting that there is a paradox in a world of ever increasing globalization and even globalization of how the information is given out in different form or the internet. The news becomes focused locally. Thats our sweet spot. Thats what our readers want. In the print edition it is more and more local. Web, we still have the ability to post National News and international but what our readers want is to know whats going on jewishly in berkley or walnut creek or San Francisco, palo alto, marin, or any place like that. Thats really our sweet spot. Thats what a local Community Publication should be. If we do it right, we help people enjoy being jewish in the bay area better than if they didnt have access to our content. Lets take a quick break and come back and pick up on that topic when we come back in just a moment here on mosaic. Welcome back to mosaic. We are in the middle of a wonderful conversation with the editor and publisher of j the jewish news of Northern California. Welcome back steve and sue. Its great to be here. Thank you very much. We were talking about this very interesting kind of conceptual paradox but how in increasing globalization and especially dissemination of information on so many platforms that the j jewish news of Northern California focuses locally. I am just wondering, its kind of a big question, but how do you think about the local, Global Spectrum . Well both weigh in on that. From my perspective on the business side, i think its fascinating and interesting and correct that most of the stories we have are exclusive to j. You wont read them anywhere else. A couple weeks ago, the the San Francisco board of supervisors passed an anti semis itism resolution. We covered it, breaking news, we had it online. We had it in print. But i dont think it was covered anywhere else in any other local media. Two years ago, mayor lee went to israel, his first trip to israel. San francisco and high faye are sister cities. He brought a delegation to israel. He had a reporter with him. It became a cover story. Not only was that a cover story in j, i didnt see it mentioned in any press or local coverage or anything. We have dozens and dozens of examples like that, coverage thats important to us that would be a cover story or breaking news that might not go reported if it wasnt for us. So interesting. I am wondering, faith communities across the country always spend a lot of time thinking about how do you develop, support, sustain Faith Development or jewish identity or christian identity, Muslim Identity structures in your community . I am just wondering how it is that people then see it . Because it seems its very interesting that maybe you really have come upon something thats quite humanly real which is that we develop individually and locally by our families, our neighborhoods, our communities in which we have communities of care. Thats what emanates out globally. I am just wondering if thats a way in which you understand your contribution to jewish Identity Development . Let me take that. When you say faith community, i smile a little bit because there is an ongoing conversation in the Jewish Community. Yes, please. What is judaism . What is jewish identity. We are faith, a people, a culture, a history. Its important to understand that j as a jewish newspaper we are not promoting the jewish faith. We are not looking for converts to judaism. We serve interest of the jewish faith in the sense that we believe and we know because we are jews living in this community that jews today in the bay area are looking for what gives their lives meaning and in a jewish context, what jewish aspects or parts of jewish tradition or jewish culture, jewish faith give my life meaning and falys life meaning. We really look to that as a service that we can provide. Its a beautiful service, i think. Who do you consider your reader . Our readers are people who want to look at the world through a jewish lens. That is a phrase that i choose carefully because who is the Jewish Community . In this bay area, where the majority of jewish families contain techniquely nonjewish people but nonjewish members who have chosen to identify jewishly, whatever that means, our readers, our jews and people who are concerned with issues and topics that jews are concerned with. In the bay area, it is such an innovative community. We are lucky and proud and happy to be reporting on the bay area Jewish Community, not that boston and philadelphia and new york dont have vibrant communities. But there is Something Different here. There is something that is more innovative and more diverse. Thats what our readers are looking for when theyre reading local stories. Thats our sweet spot. Thats where we want to be. We are going to take another quick break and come back to this wonderful conversation here on mosaic in just one moment. Recently our country has witnessed catastrophic devastation. Hurricanes and flooding have upended lives and livelihoods. Across this great country, americans have answered the call. That special calling that compels us, when others are down, swhatev it takes. America is at her best when, against all odds, we come together and lift each other up. Announcer please donate to oneamericaappeal. Org America Needs you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome back to mosaic. We are in the middle of a wonderful conversation with the publisher and editor of j the jewish news. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. We were talking about the diversity of the Jewish Community. Our community is so diverse across the spectrum of demographics of the ways in which people identify with the community, whether it is as a culture, as a community at large, religiously, so many different ways. I am just wondering how do you account for our common diversity in the way you give news, the way you present news . I am going to turn that over to sue. Thats really an editorial thing. But i think its amazing that day after day and week after week how sue chooses the opinion pieces, the oped pieces every week, the editorial j runs as official position on something, the letters to the editor. Talk about diversity, it is so balanced. You will see two positions in the same issue of the print edition diametrically opposed and it is fascinating. Then the next issue of the print edition, you will see letters supporting each of those sides. That can go on for weeks. I dont know how you do it. I dont know how she does it. Because there is a very Diverse Community. X percent think we are too left. X percent think we are too right. X percent think we are just right. But everybody has an opinion. Thats a good thing. Thats part of being a community hub. Its interesting because we live in a world where in a stereotypical way, we say a news outlet is of this perspective or that perspective. Right. Many times we go to the news outlet to support what we already believe about the word or in some cases want to find a different perspective even though we may or may not agree with it. Right. Its interesting because i think in the community the j basically encompasses the diversity itself. So a Diverse Community has diverse opinions. When it comes down to it at an editorial level, time to time when somebody is literally reading something, how do you decide a particular perspective at any particular time about anything thats happening in the world, be it an election, a country like israel, a situation in another part of the world with a jewish perspective . You have really touched upon the central delicate balancing act that i as editor and j as jewish news publication has to engage in every day. We have two roles. We are a Community Watch dog. We are reporting the news. We are making sure we are Holding Power to accountability. At the same time, we are an advocate for our Jewish Community. So we are criticizing and advocating for the same community that we are a part of. What is our role visa ve israel . We will have jewish institutions who will say we should be supporting policies of a given government of israel. But thats part of what a jewish publication is supposed to do. Then we have other readers who say no, look to my key Jewish Values, the individual writing to us, whatever his her values are, that is what you need to be listening to, not just opinions or policies of the current israeli government. We support israel as the most exciting National Project of jewish in history. Within that, there is a wide range of opinions that are acceptable to us. Sometimes we just have to listen to our gut. This oped or letter to the editor, does it feel right . Does it feel the criticism is constructive . Is it coming from a place of love and support of the community and Jewish Values . We balance it. Its interesting because judaism at its core is a constellation of people hood, culture, and theology, we need a device, we need an information device that actually reflects all that. Its a little different than other faith communities that might have the perspective of a theological stance or Something Like that. So really it seems to me that in your thinking you have become a kind of mirror in the community itself. You have become a kind of educational device for the community itself. Really, you have become a kind of nourishing sustaining mechanism for the community to have kind of self reflective experience. I am wondering in what ways maybe your letters to the editor reflect that deeper kind of i would say yearning that we all have to be connected and to care for one another. Thats a beautiful way of putting it. I think we do all have a yearning to connect. Thats what a jewish publication does for a Jewish Community. Again, not an unthinking or uncritical connection but exploring what is meaningful about this. At the same time this week we in the jewish press around the country are very involved in looking at hate groups, white nationalists, white supremacist groups who are spouting antisemitic as well as antiimmigrant hate. At the same time i as editor of j have to be concerned about that and how it is affecting our local Jewish Community, people also want to read recipes. People want to cook. People want to send children to jewish schools. People want to read the commentary of the week. We really have to Pay Attention to the diverse roles that we play in the community as well as the diversity of political opinion. We are going to take a break in a moment. But it seems then if its a communal enterprise, its kind of a big question. Before we go to our next break, i want to ask what is the responsibility of readership . Does readership have a responsibility to its News Organization in its community . I think the responsibility of the readership is to be engaged. And when you see the amount of letters we get and you see people answering letters in a subsequent issue, when you see the comments we get on our Facebook Page where we have 11,000 followers on our Facebook Page, its a very engaged audience. We are a nonprofit now. Four years ago we became a nonprofit. So there is really a way for our readers to tell us how much they appreciate the work that we do in the community. Since we became a nonprofit, we have over 3000 donors that have contributed to keep j publishing the way it has been publishing. Thank you. We are going to take another quick break and come back to mosaic in just a moment. Good morning. Welcome back to mosaic. We are about to conclude a wonderful conversation with steve and susan, publisher and editor of j. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. Can you talk a little bit about some general things like how do people reach you . How do people subscribe . How do people access your news . Absolutely. A little bit about your internal staff and how you function, who you are. Absolutely. One thing i wanted to mention when talking about diversity is we are independent. We are not owned by an individual. We are not owned by the federation. In many cities, the jewish newspaper, jewish publication is owned by the federation. We are governed by a board of directors, and we are independent which means that like all printbased media entities we base our revenue on advertising. And we would love to see more nonjewish advertising, like jewelry stores, car dealers, anything like that tarachia demographic thats a very hard to reach demographic. I wanted to give a couple web addresses. If you want to subscribe to the print edition its jweekly. Com subscribe. If you want to sign up for the weekly news letter, a round up of the top stories in j and it comes to your inbox its jweekly. Com newsletter. If you want to donate, because we are so proud of the fact that we are a nonprofit its jweekly. Com donate. I say that because it magically appears in your mailbox every s years. Its a state of the art website, and we base it all on the money that we receive from the community and advertising. And the Community Aspect is becoming more and more important to us and one that we embrace as a new nonprofit. Can you talk a little bit about who your reporters are, who your staff is . I will just give a couple numbers. We have 18 full or part time Staff Members that put out this newspaper and website. We have an annual directory called resource which is a guide to jewish life in the bay area. Its a directory of everything you would need or want from Senior Living to barmitzfa, day camp. Its online at jweekly. Com jewishresourceguide we do it with 18 full and part time staff and one and a half reporters. I dont know if you want to add to that. When talking about the diversity of the bay area and the fact that our focus is local, we are doing it with one and a half full time reporters meaning a full time reporter and part time reporter. I dont know if there is anything you want to add. We are driven by mission, by passion, and caring for the Jewish Community. We are part of the Jewish Community. We want to hear from our readers. I answer every letter i get. Steve responds to every call that he gets. You, our readers, are a part of determining what we write about. Let us know what you want to know about. Sue and steve, thank you so much for this wonderful conversation. Please go to the website and Pay Attention to the jewish news here in Northern California. Welcome to bay sunday. Weve got a lot happening this morning. Music, books, and much more. First, a new dance performance premiering in San Francisco, skies calling, skies falling. The choreographer and artistic director Margaret Jenkins is here to tell us more. Welcome. Thank you so much. I love the title. Explain how you came up with that and what its about. Skies calling, skies falling is really my dance companys response to where we are both politically and socially at this time in our country. We made this work kind of really in response to the results of the election. So we kind of use shock