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Community weaves a beautiful tapestry
FLORENCE ECKSTEIN
Editor & Publisher
In the June 12 print edition, we present a moving look back through time, from our first issue on Jan. 15, 1948, through this important moment, publication of our 50th anniversary issue.
Through words and photographs, we have traced the patterns that create the panorama of our Valley Jewish community as it appears in the papers of Jewish News. The community boasted only 2,000 members, two congregations and maybe a dozen organizations when we published our first four-page issue. It now has grown to an estimated 60,000-70,000 people, 24 synagogues and some 200 groups and organizations. The vividly hued threads that compose our community tapestry are the men and women, boys and girls, who have invested themselves spiritually, culturally, socially and financially.
The core of this issue is a collection of excerpts from the pages of 50 years' worth of issues, which we hope will convey the significant events and essential quality of each decade. As you may imagine, these fragments are noteworthy as much for the names and events left out for reasons of space, as for those they include.
To complement our retrospection, we profile three generations of the Feller family as community members, as well as Rabbi Albert Plotkin, who has been making news on our pages for four of our five decades, and who this year marks his own 50th anniversary in the rabbinate. We offer a short history of the newspaper's consistencies and changes during its life span, and a commentary on the role of the Jewish community press. We report also what some adults and teen readers envision for our community in the years to come.
The process of immersion in the pages of our history has altered my long-held conviction about our community's process of maturation and sophistication. I know now that our community always has been exceptional. From the beginning, Phoenix's Jews have lived deeply and meaningfully, participating, giving and growing with all our hearts and all our souls. Our challenge is to know and understand the past, savor the present and anticipate the future - and to appreciate the inherent importance and value of every moment along the continuum of time.
I am profoundly grateful to the members of our staff for the creativity, enthusiasm and hard work they have invested in this anniversary issue - and for their constant excellence and caring. They make all the difference.
We are delighted with the cornucopia of advertisers who have joined us in celebration of our milestone, and that so many are using the occasion to tell the story of their own accomplishments.
Looking ahead, I am confident that we will live the next 50 years with as meaningful a commitment to Jewish community life as we have until now. Jewish News will be there, to experience and report on it.
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