in interest rates. cut the confusion at creditrepair.com. (rock music) [ music ] good morning and welcome to mosaic. i'm honored to be your host this morning. faith communities across the country pay a lot of attention to the ways in which it communicates the goings-on of its particular community to itself and to the world. we would like to invite you into a wonderful conversation with steve gilman, the publisher and the editor of j some of the jewish news of northern california. welcome steve and sue.

>> it is great to be here. >> let's just jump in and tell us, what is j the jewish news of northern california? >> it is interesting, with only been around for 122 years, but many people don't even know that we exist. many people who donate to their local jewish federation will get j newspaper in their mailbox and not know why they haven't subscribed. that is because they get it as part of the donation. people ask, what is a jewish newspaper? so we look at ourselves as a way to understand the world through a jewish lens, but that is not an uncritical lens, and it is not a uniform view. it is a way to give a sense of identity and belonging to the approximately 400,000 jewish

people that live in the san francisco bay area. we have your the third or fourth largest jewish community in america depending on whose numbers you are looking at. but we are so geographically dispersed that as the editor and steve as the publisher, we look at j the newspaper as a way to give a sense of belonging, give a voice to that geographically and politically and denominational he disparate community. >> that's interesting. i think a lot of people don't realize that demographically speaking across the country, typically los angeles and then new york are considered one into in terms of jewish the graphic population and then it's a san francisco bay area. >> or south florida. >> and also that we have lots of structures in our community. so one of them is the jewish community federation like a jewish community united way. that people donate to for the sake of services to the community and people then as a

benefit of the donation oftentimes get a subscription to the newspaper. >> i wanted to turn it over to steve for little bit to talk about how we function as a newspaper, how people can find us. >> while we call ourselves a newspaper, we are evolving, and we use the term media outlet because there's many ways to access our content. we have a print edition that comes out twice a month and that is the traditional newspaper, it's been publishing for 122 years. we have a new website, j weekly.com that was just redesigned and we relaunched in january. that is breaking news throughout the day and it's updated throughout the day. if you sign up for the friday email newsletter with the top stories of the week, you will get breaking news as it happens in the community. we are very proud of that. because for this new website, we were uploading weekly

content to the website every week. now if you go to j weekly.com you will see different stories. >> i think it's interesting in this ever-changing world about how we live in an information age and communicate one another on many different levels. there used to be and maybe i think it still is in print newspaper world a byline of all of the news that is fit to print as a way of saying it captures everything of importance in the world to communicate to the community and so in that framework, what is jewish news? >> what is jewish news? what is jewish art or a jewish film or book? that is an ongoing conversation for our publication, it would be we are very hyper local and that is very interesting. i would say 20 years ago the people who read j would wait for the newspaper to come on friday or saturday morning for

the news of what was happening in israel. for the news of what was happening in washington. and that is no longer true. that was 20 years ago. so today, our function is much more, what is happening in your synagogue or a new jewish film coming at the landmark cinema or a new jewish book you may want to be reading, what are different rituals that are being innovated in the peninsula or marin. it is a different role that we felt for people as a community changes and as technology changes. >> its own testing. we will take a break in just a moment, but it seems interesting that there is a kind of conceptual paradox in a world of ever increasing globalization and even the globalization of how the information is given out in digital form or the internet. the news becomes focused locally. >> that is our sweet spot and what our readers want and in the print edition, it is more and more local. web, we have the ability to

post national news and international news, but what the readers want is to know what is going on jewish in berkeley or walnut creek or palo alto or marin. or anyplace like that. and that is really our sweet spot. that's what a local community publication should be. and if we do it right, we help people enjoy being jewish in the bay area better than if they didn't have access to our content. >> let's take a quick break and the cup on the topic when we come back in just a moment here on mosaic.

welcome back to mosaic. i'm honored to be your host. we are in a conversation with the editor and publisher of j the jewish newspaper of northern california. we were talking about this interesting conceptual paradox how in a world of increasing globalization and the dissemination of information on so many different platforms, the jewish news of northern california focuses locally. so i'm just wondering, a big question, but how do you think about this local gl spectrum

? >> we will both weigh in on that. from my perspective on the business side, i think it is fascinating and interesting and correct that most of the stories we have are exclusive to j. you won't read them anywhere else. a couple weeks ago, the san francisco board of supervisors passed in anti-semitism resolution. we covered it. breaking news, we had it online and in print. but i don't think it was covered anywhere else in any other local media. 2 years ago, the mayor went to israel, the first trip to israel , san francisco and haifa are sister cities. he brought a delegation to israel, and we had a reporter with him. and it became a cover story. not only was that cover story in j, i didn't see it mentioned in any press or local coverage or anything.

we have dozens and dozens of examples like that. coverage that is important to us that it would be a cover story or breaking news that might not go reported if it wasn't for us. >> so interesting. faith communities across the country always spend a lot of time taking about, how do you develop, support, sustain faith development or jewish identity or christian identity or muslim identity structures in your community? and i'm wondering how it is that people then see it because it seems to me it is interesting that maybe you really come upon something that is quite humanly real, but just that we developed individually and locally by our families, our neighborhoods, our communities in which we have communities of care. and that's what emanates out globally. and i'm just wondering if that

is a way in which you understand your contribution to jewish identity development. >> let me take that, when you say faith community, i smile a little bit because there is an ongoing conversation in the jewish community. >> what is judaism? what is jewish identity? we are a faith, we are in ethnicity, we are a people, we are a culture, we are a history, so it is important to understand that j as a jewish newspaper, we are not promoting the jewish faith or looking for converts to judaism. but we serve the interests of the jewish faith in the sense that we believe, and we know, because we are living in the community, that jewish people in the bay area are looking for what gives their lives meaning, and in a jewish context, what gives them what jewish aspects or parts of jewish tradition or jewish culture or jewish faith give my life meaning and my

family's life meaning. and we really look to that as a service that we can provide. >> it is a beautiful service, so could you consider your leader? >> our readers are people that want to look at the world through a jewish lens. that is a phrase that i choose carefully. because who is the jewish community? in this bay area where the majority of jewish families contain technically non-jewish people, but non-jewish members who have chosen to identify jewish lay whatever that means, our readers are juice and people who are concerned with issues and topics that choose are concerned with. >> in the bay area, topics, it is such an innovative community, we are lucky and proud and happy to be reporting on the bay area jewish community, not that boston and philadelphia and newark don't have vibrant communities, but there is something different here, there is something that

is more innovative and more diverse and that is what our readers are looking for. when they are reading local stories. and that is our sweet spot. that's where we want to be. >> we will take another quick break and come back to this wonderful conversation. on mosaic in just one moment.

[ music ] good morning and welcome back to mosaic. we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation with steve gilman, the publisher and editor of j the jewish news in northern california. welcome back. we were talking about the diversity of the jewish community and our community is so diverse across the spectrum of demographics of the ways in

which people identify with the community whether as a culture or immunity at large, religiously. so many different ways. i'm wondering, how do you account for our common diversity in the way you give news? the way you present news? >> i will turn that over, because it is really an editorial thing. but i think it is amazing that day after day and week after week, how sue chooses the opinion pieces, the op-ed pieces every week, the editorial that j runs as the official position on something, the letters to the editor. talk about diversity, it is so balanced, you will see two positions in the issue of the print edition diametrically opposed and it is fascinating.

the next issue of the print edition, you will see letters supporting each of those sides and that can go on for weeks. i don't know how she does it. this is a very diverse community, x percent think with two left, x percent think we are to write, x percent think we are just right but everybody has an opinion. that is a good thing. that is part of being a community hub. >> it is interesting, because we live in a world where in a stereotypical way, we say a news outlet is of this perspective or that perspective. that's to support what we already believe about the world or in some cases want to find out about a different perspective and to we may or may not agree with it. it's interesting because i think of the community, the j basically encompasses the diversity, itself.

when it comes down to it on an editorial level, time to time when someone is literally reading something, how do you decide a particular perspective and any reticular time about anything that's happening in the world, be it an election, a country like israel, a situation in another part of the world with a jewish perspective? >> you have really touched upon the central delicate balancing act that i as an editor and j has to engage in every day. we have two roles, we are a community watchdog. we are reporting the news and make sure we hold power to accountability. and at the same time, we are an advocate for our jewish community. so we are criticizing and advocating for the same community that we are a part of.

what is our role vis-c-vis israel? we will have jewish community institutions that say we should be supporting the policies of a given government of israel, but that is part of what a jewish publication is supposed to do, and then we have other readers who say, no, you need to look, my key jewish values, the individual writing to us whatever his or her key values are and those are the values of judaism that you need to be listening to, not just the opinions or policies of the current israeli government. we support israel as the most exciting national project of jewish expression in history. and within that, there is a wide range of opinions that are acceptable. to us. and sometimes we just have to listen to our gut. does this op-ed or letter to the editor feel right? does it feel like the criticism is constructive? is it coming from a place of love and support of the community and of jewish values? we balance. >> it is interesting, because judaism at its core is a

constellation of peoplehood and culture and theology. we need a device, we need an information device that actually reflects all of that. so it is a little bit different than other faith communities that might have the perspective of a theological stance or something like that. and so i'm wondering really it seems to me that in your thinking, you've become a kind of mirror to the community itself, you have become a kind of educational device for the community itself. and really you have become a kind of nourishing and sustaining mechanism for the community to have a self reflective experience. and i'm wondering in what ways maybe your letters to the editor reflect that deeper kind of i would say yearning that we all have to be connected and to care for one another.

>> that is a beautiful way of putting it. i think we all have a yearning to connect. that is what a jewish publication does for a jewish community. and again, not an unthinking or uncritical connection, but exploring what is meaningful about this. and at the same time, this week, in the jewish press around the country, we are very involved in looking at hate groups and white nationalist, white supremacist groups who are spouting anti-semitic as well as anti-immigrant hate. at the same time that i as the editor of j have to be concerned about that and how it affects the local jewish community, people want to read recipes. people want to get ready for shabbat and cook. people want to send children to jewish schools and they want to read the torah commentary of the week. so we really have to pay attention to the diverse roles that we play in the community as well as the diversity of political opinion. >> we will take a break in just

a moment, but it seems then if it's a communal enterprise, it is kind of a big question, but before we go to the next brick, i want to ask you, what is the responsibility of readership? does readership have a responsibility? to the news organization and the community? >> i think the responsibility of the readership is to be engaged. and when you see the amount of letters that we get and you see people answering letters in a subsequent issue, when you see the comments we get on our facebook page where we have 11,000 followers on our facebook page, it is a very engaged audience. we are a nonprofit now. 4 years ago, we became a nonprofit. so there is really a way for our readers to tell us how much they appreciate the work that we do in the community. and since we became a nonprofit, we have over 3000

donors that have contributed to keep j publishing the way it has been publishing. >> thank you. we will take another quick break and come back to mosaic in just a moment.

good morning and welcome back to mosaic. i'm honored to be your host this morning. we are about to conclude a wonderful conversation with steve gelman, the publisher and editor of j, the newish, the jewish news of northern

california. welcome back. can you talk a little bit about some general things like how do people reach you? how do people subscribe? how do people access your news and a little bit about your internal stuff and how you function? >> one thing i wanted to mention when we talk about diversity and diversity of opinions is we are independent and we aren't owned by an individual. and we are not owned by the federation. in many cities, the jewish newspaper or jewish publication is owned by the federation. we are governed by a board of directors and we are independent. that means that like all print- based media entities, we base our revenue on advertising and we would love to see more non- jewish advertising like jewelry stores, car dealers, anything like that to reach a

demographic that is a very hard to reach demographic. the jewish community of the bay area. and i wanted to just quickly give a couple web addresses. if you want to subscribe to the print edition, it is j weekly.com/subscribe. if you want to sign up for the weekly newsletter which is a roundup of the top stories in j , and it comes to your inbox, it is j weekly.com/board/ newsletter. and if you want to donate, because we are so proud of the fact that we are a nonprofit, it is j weekly.com/donate. and i say that, because it magically appears in your mailbox every two weeks without fail for 122 years. it is a d we base it all onney th receer counity.micoremore importand on

as a new nonprofit. >> can you talk a little bit about who your reporters are and your staff is? >> i will give a couple numbers. we have 18 full or part-time staff members that put out this newspaper and website. we have an annual directory called resource which is a guide to jewish life in the bay area, a directory of everything you would need or want from senior living to bar in bat mitzvah and preschools and it is online at j weekly.com/jewish resource guide. we do with 18 full and part- time staff and one half reporters. i don't know if you want to add to that, but when we talk about the diversity of the bay area and the fact that our focus is local, we are doing it with 1 1/2 full-time reporters meaning a full-time reporter and a part-

time reporter. i don't know if there's anything you wanted >> are ivs jewish community. hear fre adertterthati get, steve responds to recall that he gets. and you, our readers are a part of determining what we write about. let us know what you want to know about. >> thank you so much for the wonderful conversation. please, go to the website and pay attention to the jewish news in northern california.

live from the cbs bay area studios, this is kpix 5 news. >> right now on kpix 5 ndicbe ng to an end ? we will learn how much longer covid could impact our community. the police are oking fo a nmanwho shot several members of a community. a china town creek tradition is roaring back. this is the year of the tiger. a parade is back. how can it help businesses