History of Jewish BC Media

A very small number of Jewish newspapers or newsletters were published in Vancouver prior to 1930. In 1925, The Vancouver Jewish Bulletin was the first Jewish paper to be published. In its early years the paper promoted the establishment of a Jewish community centre. After such a centre was built in 1928 the Centre Bulletin began being published every week. This paper would change its name to Weekly News and then Jewish Centre News before finally settling on the name, The Jewish Western Bulletin in 1930.

Around the same time, Di Yiddishe Velt (The Jewish World) was published under the editorial leadership of Mordecai Jaffe. With a focus on Jewish literature, it contained both Yiddish and English sections. Only six issues would ever be published between 1928 and 1935.

In 1930, a paper called the Independent Jew was also published for a short time. It was published by Julius Shore and edited by Sim Alfred Goldston.

The Jewish Centre News was replaced by The Jewish Western Bulletin (JWB) in 1930. Initially published under a number of editors and the leadership of the Jewish Community Council, the JWB would become an amazing, long-lasting record of Jewish life in BC and beyond.

One of the JWB’s first editors, Abraham Arnold, raised the paper’s level of journalism in the 1950s. However, by the 1960s the newspaper was in financial trouble. In 1960, a couple from Winnipeg, Sam and Mona Kaplan took on the operation of the JWB but continued to receive a substantial subsidy from the Council. Eventually, through plenty of hard work the couple saw the JWB become financially viable again and the newspaper became fully independent.

As the Kaplans got older in the 1990s they considered selling the JWB. They eventually sold the paper to three people who had put long hours into the operation of the JWB: Kyle Berger, Cynthia Ramsey, and Pat Johnson.

In 2005, the JWB changed its name to the Jewish Independent to better reflect the international scope of its news coverage and readership. Over the years the JWB has covered everything from Zionism to anti-Semitism, human rights issues to local arts and culture.

Harry Smith was an important figure in the distribution of printed press in Vancouver. Immigrants from Russia, Harry and his wife Hilda moved to Calgary in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1934, they moved to Vancouver and bought a business called Imperial News Co. which Smith would rename, Harry Smith the Magazine Man Ltd. and then eventually just Harry Smith Ltd.

During and after WWII Smith began expanding the business to include toys, knickknacks, and books. The war limited Canadian access to US comic books so Smith began publishing locally produced comics. Smith passed away in 1979 after a long career in the magazine industry.

There has been a diversification of Jewish media in Vancouver in more recent years. The independent, secular magazine Outlook has been published since 1979. It publishes articles written from a socialist/humanist perspective.

From 1980 to 1990, L’Chaim, a program that explored the Jewish community, aired on cable television. In addition, there have been several locally produced radio programs that discuss Jewish life.