APRIL 30 • 2020 | 5
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Editor’
s note
Cap & Gown Flashbacks
A
gainst my better judg-
ment, I’
m going to share
with all of you what I
looked like in high school. Look
at that handsome young 2007
shayne punim and his crooked
haircut.
Online right
now, lots of folks
are reposting pic-
tures from their
younger days,
hanging out with
cool clothes and
cool haircuts, as
a sign of solidarity for all the
housebound students this year
who can’
t have proms or grad-
uation ceremonies because of
COVID-19. But I ask you, were
they in klezmer bands? I think
not.
OK. Why would I subject
myself to this? Well, this came
from the Jewish News, many years
before I would find myself in
charge of it. Specifically, this was
the JN’
s annual “Cap & Gown”
issue, in which, for the last 22
years, proud parents across the
Detroit area have had the oppor-
tunity to show off their child’
s
accomplishments as they gradu-
ate high school and prepare for
their next adventure.
And Cap & Gown is coming
up again this year. Not even
the COVID-provoked school
closures will stop its May 28
publication date. So long as our
local high school seniors are still
graduating (and they are), the
JN will provide a space for their
parents, grandparents, schools,
congregations and piano teach-
ers to brag about them. It’
s our
most popular issue of the year,
and with good reason.
Participating in the issue
will, in turn, preserve the
graduate’
s smiling face forev-
er in the William Davidson
Digital Archive of Jewish
Detroit History, supported
by the Detroit Jewish News
Foundation. Years from now,
you, too, can go digging through
old digital copies of JN and
remember all those great schol-
arships, sports teams and school
pictures.
The deadline for submitting
your free listing, which includes
a photo and up to 40 words for
all graduating seniors, is May 8
(there’
s a form on our website).
The deadline for purchasing any
congratulatory ads is May 12
(email salessupport@renmedia.
us). I hope you’
ll take the time
to submit. Without any physical
ceremonies or gatherings this
spring, Cap & Gown is the next-
best thing we have to a gradua-
tion party.
(That reminds me: at my own
grad party we set up a tent in my
front yard and catered Jimmy
John’
s, but we ran out of sand-
wiches due to a better-than-ex-
pected showing of my friends,
and my dad had to make an
emergency run to Little Caesar’
s
for Hot-N-Readies. It was the
proudest moment of my life.)
Oh, also. If your lovely mug
was featured in Cap & Gown
back in the day, dig it up! You
can search our archives at
djnfoundation.org and down-
load any pages that feature
you. Post your throwback to
social media with the hashtag
#CapAndGown and show us
how far you’
ve come. Don’
t let
me be the only one embarrass-
ing myself. I do this for all of
you.
continued on page 6
Andrew Lapin
Marching band section leader? Watch out!
J
ust hours before the seder,
British Jews heard the
shocking news that the
nation’
s leading national-
circulation Jewish newspapers,
the Jewish Chronicle
and the Jewish
News, were being
liquidated.
The Kessler
Foundation,
which owns both
papers, had run
out of money.
When local advertising dried
up because of the coronavirus,
“voluntary liquidation” became
the only alternative.
So, for the first time since
1841, Anglo Jewry was
confronted with the thought of
no weekly Jewish newspaper
to tie the community together.
For those in London who have
received their Jewish newspaper
once a week for as long as they
can remember, it was as if the
New York Times suddenly ceased
operations.
Thankfully, the Jewish News
has since been “saved” by a
donor.
The demise of England’
s
Jewish Chronicle comes on the
heels of the announcement that
Canada’
s most significant Jewish
newspaper, the Canadian Jewish
News, has likewise shut its doors.
“
Already struggling, we are not
able to sustain the enterprise
in an environment of almost
complete economic shutdown,
”
the newspaper’
s president,
Elizabeth Wolfe, wrote in a final
letter to readers. “We too have
become a victim of COVID-19.
”
These closures could hardly
have come at a worse time. With
Jewish communal life around
the world upended, newspapers
like the Canadian Jewish News
expected to play a role, as Wolfe
put it, “to inform, console and
distract our readers as we all
isolate at home, worried about
our families, our friends, our
medical caregivers, all those
risking their lives to provide
essential services, our businesses
and livelihood, our community,
What if Jewish Journalism Disappears?
guest column
Jonathan D.
Sarna