O pinion
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Goodbye, 2020
BY LIZ SPIKOL
I SAW A COMMERCIAL for
Match.com recently in which
Satan goes on a date with a
woman named 2-0-2-0 — and
they sit and stare at the New
York skyline, hoping the year
will just go on forever. I am
not one to cite TV spots in
my writing (my high school
English teacher would call it
déclassé), but in this case I am
making an exception. The ad
is such a perfect encapsulation
of what we’re all feeling — that
2020 just sucked, relentlessly.

But we survived. Bloody,
battle-scarred, our forces
depleted — but the Jewish
Exponent is still here, unlike so
many of our media brethren.

As other Jewish newspapers
closed or shuttered their print
editions, we have continued in
print and online, even as we cut
staff positions, including one
reporter and our digital editor.

(And this week we’re digital-only,
but it’s the only time this year.)
Truth is, compared to most
media outlets, we’ve been
lucky. The pandemic has devas-
tated newspapers, magazines
and digital media products
nationwide, with thousands of
journalism jobs lost, many of
them at local news outlets that
can ill afford a smaller staff.

In Pennsylvania, there were 18
media companies negatively
affected by the coronavirus;
our daily, The Philadelphia
Inquirer, cut 505 jobs.

The Jewish Exponent’s
survival is unquestionably
owed to the passion and
commitment of our readership.

I have never worked at a publi-
cation with a more involved,
invested audience.

If we do something you
like, we hear about it. If we
do something you don’t like,
we hear about it. But we also
get calls and letters just saying
hello, reaching out, making
contact, kvetching about life in
the city. It’s a real community
of readers and, like the Jewish
communities we all belong to,
it’s haimishe.

As grateful as I am for that
support, I am just as thankful
to the Exponent staff as there’s
a tremendous amount of work
that goes into creating this
paper every week. Our whole
team, which switched from
working in an office to working
from home in a matter of days,
has been strikingly resilient.

In fact, staff writer Sophie
Panzer moved to Philadelphia
and started at the Exponent just
a few short weeks before the
pandemic stuck us at home. In
a new city with unprecedented
challenges, she has excelled,
bringing us new coverage areas
and fantastic story ideas.

Jesse Bernstein also made
the switch without missing
a beat, expanding his role as
staff writer and books editor,
and taking on new tasks with
sunny aplomb.

And Managing Editor
Andy Gotlieb, who I call
the Leatherman tool of our
company — he can write, he can
edit, he can probably juggle with
oranges for all I know — kept
our newsroom organized and on
target with deadlines, even as all
our procedures changed.

I couldn’t ask for a better
crew, and I am grateful to them
every day for all their hard work.

There are many other people
who make this paper possible:
Susan Baron, Steve Burke,
Mike Costello, Nicole McNally,
Taylor Orlin, Jennifer Perkins-
Frantz, Sharon Schmuckler,
Shari Seitz and Justin Tice.

I remember in February,
when COVID still seemed
distant, I read some first-person
accounts of 1918 pandemic
survivors. I wondered what
would it be like to live through
such universal hardship. How
would we make it through?
Now, as the calendar turns
to 2021, the answer is clear: We
improvise. We get creative. We
lead with kindness. We band
together. We raise our voices.

We fight.

Here’s to another year of feisty
Jews making a difference. We
promise to be here to cover it.

Crossing Bridges to Learn From Others
BY ABBEY FRANK
I ’ V E A LWAY S H A D a
fascination with bridges.

I clearly recall the thrill of
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
each summer on the way to
Virginia Beach, looking out
the window to the surrounding
water and feeling a rush of
excitement. This narrow road,
supported by a strong base and
endless wires and pulleys, was
taking me somewhere else — to
10 DECEMBER 31, 2020
vacation and days in the sand.

As I grew older, my fascination
morphed from pure excitement
to hesitation. Crossing a large
body of water on pavement
supported by a skeletal founda-
tion held up by thin pieces of
metal was scary. How is this
bridge holding up all the cars
and people crossing? Is it worth
the risk to get to the other side?
Like others, I give thought
to how the metaphor of
crossing a bridge influences
my personal and professional
life. Like building a physical
bridge, moving forward
through a narrow space is not
always easy. But bringing two
sides together most often leads
to something better; resistance
often leads to stagnation. This
is particularly true within the
Jewish community. Much has
been written about connecting
traditional institutions with
innovative start-ups that are
attracting younger members;
far less, about bridging our
operational structure to those
of the business sector.

In a recent meeting, a lay
leader shared a vision for our
organization — to change
our operations to function
more like a business. In
other meetings, I have fielded
questions about our “product”
and measuring “returns on
investment,” or ROI. These
are welcome conversations
as nonprofits should pay
closer attention to fixed and
variable costs, maintain a
balanced budget and think
strategically about how our
investments impact change.

More concerning, however, is
adapting a for-profit model of
ROI to our work. In the private
JEWISH EXPONENT
sector, managers scruti-
nize monthly, quarterly and
year-end profit statements to
assess their performance. If a
product is not yielding a profit,
it is often abandoned quickly
to protect against further
economic loss.

This is not a strategy that
can easily be bridged from the
corporate world. Our invest-
ments are in people, programs
and strategies that make up a
Jewish community. Measuring
short-term impact, while
useful, only tells a small part
of the story.

Consider an allocation
to local Jewish day schools.

Nationally, on average, grants to
day schools account for 16% of
total allocations. Communities
make this investment utilizing
research that day school gradu-
ates are more likely to have
a strong Jewish identity and
connection to community, and
that these schools are essential
to a Jewish community’s health
and growth.

However, in the United
States, only 7% of Jewish
children attend a day school.

Applying a pure business
model, this does not make sense.

Communities are investing a
significant percentage of scarce
resources to a small percentage
of the population for results
that may not come for 20 to 30
years. But research has shown
that day school education has
significant returns in which an
entire community will benefit.

Similarly, there is growing
investment in innovative teen
leadership programs that are
reaching unaffiliated teens. The
See Frank, Page 16
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