Looking back at 5775

Jan. 15 cover of The CJN

The walls surrounding my desk at our Toronto offices are camouflaged by an ever-growing collage of CJN covers. Every Monday afternoon, after the week’s paper has been sent off to the presses, I like to print a copy of the front page and tape it to the wall, right next to the previous week’s version. It’s a ritual that signals the end of one news cycle and the beginning of the next. This week’s cover will be number 84 on the wall.

As we were putting together this week’s cover story – “5775: The year in review” – I found myself gazing at the collection of front pages accumulated over the past 12 months. A few stand out:

The Oct. 2, 2014 cover featured the silhouette of a young woman with the headline “From trauma to triumph.” It was the first in a three-part series about poverty in the Jewish community, as told from the perspective of those who experience it first-hand. Two weeks later, the cover asked a pointed question: “One in seven Canadian Jews lives below the poverty line. What are we doing about it?” 

After a terror attack at a Jerusalem synagogue left five people dead and Canadian-Israeli Howie Rothman seriously injured, the Nov. 27 cover showed a religious man peering through the bullet-punctured door of the shul, over the headline “Jerusalem under attack.” The same issue featured an important debate regarding whether Israel can be both Jewish and democratic.

On Jan. 15, we went with an all-black cover and the simple headline, “Je Suis Juif.” It was a symbol of our collective shock and mourning in the wake of the attack at a kosher supermarket in Paris that left four people dead and had Jews all around the world wondering whether it signalled the beginning of a new wave of anti-Semitic terror.

The Feb. 5 cover centred around a mouse – or more accurately, a “maus.” The accompanying story explained how cartoonist Art Spiegelman and his signature creation, a cigarette-puffing, yellow star-wearing rodent changed the way we think about Holocaust education.  

One month later on March 5, our Purim edition was illustrated by a hamentash overlaid with a black-and-blue pattern. Or was it white and gold? Readers may have been confused by some stories we covered that week – including the groundbreaking report “Jewish community leaders are concerned that young professionals of the millennial generation are not as committed to maintaining their grip on the worldwide media as the generation before them” – but it was all in good fun. 

Two weeks ago, the cover featured a Magen David on top of an orange, red and blue backdrop – the colours of the NDP, Liberal and Conservative parties, respectively. I like this one for its simplicity, but also because it represents the stellar efforts by our reporters and editors thus far in covering the federal election campaign.

As a new year dawns, I’m excited to see what will grace the cover of The CJN in 5776. If the last 12 months are any indication, we’re in for another interesting year.

Shanah Tovah to all. — YONI