All of us look forward to learning what’s happening in our Jewish community. For generations, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has proudly produced the Arizona Jewish Post. Over that time, some of us have preferred to read our news in print, while others of us read online.
Nonetheless, our newspaper has suffered budgetary pressures experienced by print media in general, and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, our advertising revenues have further diminished, resulting in a crisis for our revenue model. Indeed, the closure of many of our businesses and offices, and the cessation of in-person services and engagement activities during the past few months have exacerbated this trend.
Therefore, after much consideration, the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has determined unanimously that it is essential for the Arizona Jewish Post to consider innovative design and delivery concepts in order to continue providing our community the highest quality news stories, features, and advertisements in a sustainable manner.
Consequently, the Arizona Jewish Post will be placed on a summer hiatus following this July 17, 2020 issue to allow us to explore all means and methods for communicating with the community we serve.
We recognize that the hiatus of the Arizona Jewish Post during this period when many of us feel isolated may be unwelcome news, but we will continue to provide emails and online information over the summer to stay in touch. Moreover, we believe this unprecedented downtime provides us an opportunity for exploration and reflection, and that this decision will prove to be beneficial for the future of our community, the Federation, and the synagogues and agencies we proudly promote.
Communicating with the Jewish community of Southern Arizona and other key stakeholders remains a critical priority. This hiatus represents a point of inflection. We will be using this time to reevaluate and assess how we can most effectively and cost-efficiently proceed, taking into consideration the changing nature of news production and consumption, advertising preferences, print formats, and combinations of delivery mechanisms.
Our team will further investigate new avenues including web, email, social media, and alternative approaches to print as well as other print and periodical styles. This will be a learning process — for you and us — so we invite you to be our valued partners as we endeavor over the summer to strengthen and streamline our community’s communications. Our goal and intention is to continue to work with our agencies and synagogues to feature simchas, bring you stories about remarkable community members, highlight important happenings, and promote local events.
To our current and longstanding advertising supporters and patron contributors: We are so appreciative of your investment in supporting the Arizona Jewish Post and the Southern Arizona Jewish community over the past several decades. We are eager to explore together with you the best ways to both meet your advertising and content needs while arriving at a more sustainable business model for communications and community engagement.
The Southern Arizona Jewish community is unique, vibrant, and strong. We are strong precisely because of every individual, and we want to make sure that we continue to be able to engage now, during these changing times, and for many years to come with each and every one of you and those who join in our community in the future.
Your feedback is critical to us. Please take a few moments to complete our brief survey at www.jfsa.org/ajp or by cutting out and mailing in the brief form in the July 17 print edition. This survey will both ensure that we have updated contact information for you and enable you to provide us with your insights and feedback on community communications for the future.
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is here to support, sustain, and enrich Jewish life. We look forward to continuing to communicate with you in new ways as we all navigate the path forward.
