CP_MBHC_20230621_1_A06
marbleheadcurrent.org
A6 Wednesday, June 21, 2023 Marblehead Current
Opinion EDITORIAL
The future of local news is non-profit Two weeks ago, some of the Marblehead Current team traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with representatives of hundreds of local news outlets, financially configured like we are, as 501c3 “public good” or charitable organizations. The two-day gathering, convened by the Institute for NonProfit News (INN), was an opportunity to learn from one another. It also was a moment to celebrate how far such efforts have come. The sold-out event, known as INN Days, was first held in 2016. Then, there were 55 people in the room. This year, organizers had to book overflow space to handle the crowd. There are now more than 425 INN-member news organizations, including the Current, which count more than 2500 journalists working in their ranks. We met folks from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, East Lansing, Michigan, Vallejo, California, El Paso, Texas, Reinbeck, New York and so many others from all corners of the country. Most told strikingly familiar origin stories. Their newspapers had been bought by hedge funds or media giants. Journalists and editors were laid off, coverage was regionalized, their beloved daily papers were closed or shrunk to half their size and literally not worth, in terms of local community value, the paper they were printed on. Their stories were depressingly familiar. Each had lived the trajectory told by statistics — that 7% of the nation’s counties, or 211, now have no local newspaper. That between the pre-pandemic months of late 2019 and the end of May 2022, more than 360 newspapers closed. That since 2005, the country has lost more than onefourth of its newspapers and is on track to lose a third by 2025. Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University catalogues these losses in an annual report. Yet we left Washington D.C. more optimistic than ever that our operating model will ensure that a quality local news source will exist in Marblehead long into the future. Here’s a partial list of the benefits of being a nonprofit we, and we hope you, see: » We are locally run and decisions for the Current are made locally. Members of our board of directors are all Marbleheaders, united by the idea that quality local news is central to creating community and accountability. » Among our co-founders are three experienced journalists and editors with deep experience covering Marblehead who are committed to practicing ethical, non-partisan, fair and objective journalism. » We emphasize ensuring citizens are fully informed on community issues by developing resources like a comprehensive Town Meeting guide and an Election Guide, available in print and online. » We deliver our content free, with no barrier to access, to every home and business. » Community members share their creativity and perspective by providing exclusive content to the Current as diverse as providing a look at Marblehead history, cooking tips and important perspectives on health and well-being. » We partner with our community’s businesses to offer competitive rates and quality placements for advertisements. » We support other Marblehead nonprofits with content and partnerships that we hope lift the whole community. » We have built an operating model that is selfsustaining with a carefully chosen mix of revenue from advertising, grants and individual donors. Our future is in our own hands, not a corporate board room hundreds of miles away. This month marks one year since our first story appeared online. Since then we have launched a print edition that is delivered free every week, significantly grown our following on social media so readers can be informed wherever they consume media and covered stories that matter to how and why we live in this extraordinary community. We wrote that our future is in our own hands, but it is also true that our future is in your hands. More than one-third of our budget relies on donations. In this week’s print edition, you will find a donation envelope. We need your help to fund year two of the Current’s operations. In year two, we have ambitious plans to grow our coverage and expand our community partnerships. We are deeply grateful to the donors who have stepped up on behalf of quality journalism. If you’re one of them, we hope you consider doing more, and if you haven’t yet supported the Current we hope you do so now. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY
My rabbi BY VIRGINIA BUCKINGHAM
I never met a Jewish person until I attended Boston College in the mid-1980s. Rural Connecticut where I grew up was pretty homogenized, various protestant churches outnumbering our Catholic parish four to one. And all I knew of interfaith differences was that my mom’s family wouldn’t attend her wedding to an Episcopalian. I know it’s ironic that this thenyoung Catholic met her first Jewish friend in a dormitory at a Jesuit university. Certainly, I didn’t foresee, when I was daydreaming about my big wedding at St. Ignatius Church, that I would marry a Jew and raise two Jewish children. Nor that I would be the one to insist everyone touch the Mezuzah before leaving on a trip, that charoset on matzo would be a highlight of my Passover holiday, that my parents would attend their first seder at my table, and lighting the Sabbath candles on Friday night would become a peaceful ritual. And, for certain, I never thought I’d utter the phrase “my rabbi.” But I have one. A rabbi. Rabbi David Meyer. Our temple community, Temple Emanu-El, has been engaged in the “Big Goodbye” for months now as Meyer retires. He will lead his last Shabbat service at the temple at the end of this month. Consider this my “small goodbye.” Not to my friend, as I know we will continue our personal friendship. But a goodbye to a part of my own life’s journey, wrestling with what I thought was the fundamental question: How could I raise two children in a faith I knew nothing of? That question transformed to an even more fundamental one as painful challenges unfolded. Could I find spiritual solace, even hope, in a faith tradition that was not my own? Rabbi Meyer, my rabbi, helped answer that question, even though I never could articulate it. The question came from my soul, not my mind. The first meeting we had in the rabbi’s study was to talk about our soon-to-be-born son’s baby naming. I was nervous, perhaps a little defensive. My husband and I had made the decision to raise our children in the Jewish faith after many talks and self-reflection. The reality, though, that my extended family would be gathering at my house to witness and celebrate a rite they were wholly unfamiliar with — as was I — filled me with anxiety. I thought naively, like the wedding ceremony I crafted under a chuppah in front of a judge, with the Christian tradition of lighting a unity candle, that this moment of blessing could blend our traditions. Directly and with kindness, Rabbi Meyer said there couldn’t be “any christological” references. The ceremony, days later, in our small dining room, featured Rabbi Meyer’s trademark welcoming demeanor, and as he invoked the baby’s Hebrew name and explained the significance of the tradition,
which itself was a remove from a bris, or circumcision ceremony. I felt my shoulders relax. What was strange seemed suddenly familiar. And deeply spiritual. I’ve had that same sensation in the many years since that we’ve belonged to Temple Emanu-El, though I never converted, and never felt any pressure to. Not only were many interfaith families part of the congregation, there was a feel — no, that’s not strong enough — there was an explicit recognition from the rabbi that we not only belonged but should be celebrated. I’m paraphrasing, but I remember one sermon where Rabbi Meyer said that the survival of the Jewish people also relied on people of other faiths choosing to raise their children in his. I felt proud. And cherished. My celebration of faith revolved around music — my mother was the soloist in our church. The songs of, in particular, the monks of the Weston Priory in Vermont, popular in the ’70s and ’80s, were a prayerful language that for me felt like speaking directly to God. As the rabbi filled the sanctuary with music, he filled me with a sense of being home not much different than I felt sitting in the small, pretty chapel on BC’s Newton campus. Our kids became a bar and bat mitzvah. And every Christmas, we decorated our tree and shared the traditions of my family. There was no conflict, a fact underscored when the rabbi shared a story about his own parents putting up a Christmas tree to help children they were caring for feel more comfortable in their home. There’s a moment in the seder where those gathered sing a song called “Dayenu,” which roughly translates to “it would have been enough.” And, indeed, the rabbi’s welcoming of me into the temple family and gratitude for our choices would have been enough. Then, 12 years apart, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Boston Marathon brought our community and the world to its knees, some in prayer, most in fear. My faith was deeply shaken. Yet, in services, the rabbi led us in tears and song and prayer, including one that I hold on to to this day. It is a version of a Jewish prayer for healing written by Debbie Friedman. It reads in part, “May the source of strength that blessed the ones before us help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing.” Rabbi Meyer has sung that prayer many times over the years. Each time I hear it, my eyes fill with tears. The words stir an unmistakable feeling of hope that such healing is possible — that I, too, am capable of finding the courage to make my life a blessing. Would I have heard or understood the prayer were I not welcomed to his congregation? If I remained defensive or felt judged or not enough? Those words could only enter my heart because Rabbi Meyer led Temple Emanu-El with an open heart. What a gift. Thank you, my rabbi. Virginia Buckingham is the president of the Current’s board of directors. Her column appears weekly.
MY MARBLEHEAD FIRST TIME
A more hospitable garden spot BY COURT MERRIGAN
Growing up on a farm back home, in addition to the commercial operation, we raised a garden. Not your typical garden, either, with a few tomato plants, a carrot patch, maybe some cucumbers. This garden was an operation, laid out with precision by my mom to encompass a good half-acre of food production. There were rows of sweet corn. Fields of tomatoes. Spreads of potatoes, sweet peas, green beans, bell peppers. There was even a pumpkin patch, which yielded so many that it became an annual tradition for a truckload of pumpkins to arrive in time for the school Halloween party. Jack-olanterns for all! My mom rode herd on this effort, because my mom adhered to the
creed — familiar to the Yankee ingenuity found in these parts — that homegrown and homemade is superior to store-bought in every instance save black licorice. (My mom has a thing for black licorice.) That’s why I grew up eating nothing but homemade bread, sporting homemade shirts and trousers, gathering eggs from the henhouse, dining on steaks that came from cattle I’d fed myself and supping on produce straight from our own garden. That halfacre produced vastly more than we could eat in season, so my mom spent a couple weeks at the end of the summer in a hot kitchen, canning. All winter long, one of us kids would be sent scampering down to the cellar to fetch a can of tomatoes, or sweet corn, or sweet peas, to say nothing of raspberry jam, rhubarb jelly and chokecherry cordial. We ate well all year round
thanks to her ceaseless efforts. We all should be so lucky! It’s not particularly friendly dirt out there on the high plains. The tawny soil forms a rock-hard crust you must shatter with a shovel, after which the powder beneath up and blows away at the first hint of wind, which arrives daily. As summer progresses, the soil gives warm welcome to puncture vines (called stickers and goat heads) big enough to pop bike tires and tenacious sandburs, while only grudgingly supporting the vegetables you attempt to coax forth. And, of course, nothing will grow at all without copious amounts of water. We kept a garden hose running constantly and even used to divert irrigation water from the surrounding fields to give the MERRIGAN, P. A7