 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

