(JTA) — The coronavirus crisis closed a door on Jewish journalism in Canada but opened a window.
When the Canadian Jewish News stopped publishing last month after 60 years, observers worried that the country’s Jewish population of some 400,000 would be underserved without a news outlet geared toward the community.
Now two new websites are trying to fill the void.
The former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Bernie Farber, and Ron Csillag, a former reporter at the CJN, founded The Canadian Jewish Record, an online Jewish newspaper. Its editors and reporters are volunteers, and the venture does not plan to seek advertising, according to The Times of Israel.
Meanwhile, TheJ.ca news website, once a local outlet that focused on the Jewish community of Winnipeg, in western Canada, is going national, The Times of Israel reported. The loss of the CJN spurred the new site’s publisher, Ron East, and editor in chief, Marty Gold, to go that route.
The writers and editors also are unpaid. East has been funding the operation, but he told The Times of Israel that he has advertisers lined up and is certain he can generate the necessary income to stay afloat.
