Editor’s Desk: Not goodbye, but l’hitra’ot

When I joined the staff of The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle in 1983, I never imagined that I would be there for more than 25 years. Neither did I imagine the changes I have seen.

Some were matters of technology. When I joined, we Chronicle staff members were still using electric typewriters to write stories, were pasting up wax-coated galleys on cardboard, and sometimes were editing copy with paper knives.

I have since learned to use several different computers and computer systems, e-mail and the Internet, all of which transformed the process of creating a newspaper — and some of which now may be leading the print journalism field, if not to destruction, at least to revolutionary change.

I have seen many changes of colleagues. There have been four editors — Andrew Muchin, Martin Zabel, Vivian Rothschild (now Aaron) and Elana Kahn-Oren.

I don’t know that I even remember all the other editorial team members, but I’ll give it a shot — Gayle Stockland (now Fixler), Mollie Fromstein Katz, Marilyn Ruby, Mardee Gruen, Nadine Bonner, Amy Waldman, Fred Grossman, Zach Mazur, Ruth Eglash, Erin Cohen, Elyse Cohn, Rachel Irwin, Austin Greenberg, Andrea Waxman.
Plus production wizard Yvonne Chapman; advertising sales reps Diana Turner, Alix Kaplan, Jill Polacheck, Sandy Kaiser; business managers Joni Oxman and Marcia Stein; Niki and Gary Skinner — and probably more who I hope will forgive me for not recalling their names.

I have gotten along with them in varying degrees of harmony at different times, depending on personalities, moods, religious or political opinions and, above all, how much deadline pressure we felt at the moment.

But now I can say they were all companeros, teammates in the holy task of creating a weekly newspaper. I have learned from them all, which makes them, according to Sayings of the Sages (Pirke Avot 6:3), my teachers and guides. Some of them are and I hope will always be friends.

Then there are the people I’ve interviewed and written about, too numerous to count. They have ranged from the parents of a “first Jewish baby of the year” to Nobel Prize-winners.

They have been business owners and rabbis, artists and politicians, professionals and schoolchildren. Sometimes I had the privilege of shaking hands with world-class greatness — conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein, Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel, feminist Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Israeli novelist Amos Oz, and perhaps above all Holocaust survivor-psychiatrist-thinker Victor Frankl.

But achievement, age or economic class almost haven’t mattered that much. British man of letters G. K. Chesterton is supposed to have written, “The first of all democratic doctrines is that all [people] are interesting.”

That segues nicely into the journalism article of faith that there is at least one story in everybody. I don’t think I’ve found one uninteresting person among all I’ve interviewed.

Above all, I have grown into Jewish journalism and discovered what an amazing profession it has been. Think of it: The Chronicle covers what seems to be a small community, a minority of people in the state.

Yet our issues and concerns span everything from domestic matters (how to raise children) to national issues (is school choice constitutional?) to international issues (Israel’s wars and politics, the well-being of Jews all over the world) to cultural products (music, theater, movies, television, books) to cosmic issues (why do so many Jews say they don’t believe in God?).

Culture, religion, politics, history, anthropology, philosophy — what other branch of journalism or of any other profession carries one’s mind into so many areas?

And that speaks to my apprehensions about my professional future. I don’t know where if anywhere I can earn a living for exploring, learning, thinking and sharing discoveries about so many people and such a wide range of subjects.

I have to admit that this is not how I would have wanted to end my employment at The Chronicle; and that writing this last Editor’s Desk column is one of the saddest moments of my life.

But I hope that by leaving The Chronicle I will not be leaving the community. I even may not be leaving The Chronicle completely; editor Elana Kahn-Oren has said there may be some freelance writing opportunities for the new monthly format.

Plus I’m still a clarinetist who loves to play Jewish music, and maybe I can make some sweet noise for some of you somewhere and some time. And at least at present, I don’t want to look for new employment too far away from Milwaukee.

So I hope that with any luck this is not goodbye, but l’hitra’ot — see you again soon and in happier times.