JustASC

Always sad (and ominous) to see the death of a Jewish newspaper, this one in Portland, Ore.:

In an email to the community Oct. 10, the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland announced that it will cease publication of the Jewish Review following publication of the Jan. 1, 2012, edition….

Federation has spent more than $1 million of communal resources in maintaining the operations of the newspaper over the past six years, noted the announcement that continued, “ By no longer publishing the Jewish Review, federation will free up an estimated $100,000 per year to fund other worthwhile communal needs and endeavors.”

An additional factor in the decision was the fact that a new publishing group recently informed the federation that it intends to launch a new Portland-focused Jewish lifestyles monthly magazine in January.

Read between the lines, and it looks like the federation is backing the new magazine venture – probably offering them its mailing list and a smaller subvention than they were paying for their own newspaper.

Coincidentally or not, this announcement follows news that the Portland Jewish community is bigger than many observers thought.