Welcome, dear readers, to the inaugural Ottawa Jewish E-Bulletin!

This is your electronic newsletter, established by the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, for the purpose of sharing local news and to inform, inspire, and connect our diverse Jewish community while building on the tradition and legacy of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin newspaper.

In this first issue, you will read a submission from Tamir about Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month and the community conversation initiative they are launching. There are interviews to celebrate partnerships and to share the event plan for Black History Month. We have a special letter from Rabbi Reuven Bulka and an introduction to Federation’s new Annual Campaign co-chair Josh Engel. To commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which has an event this evening, we have a submission from CHES. Lastly, to entertain, we have a quiz to test your Yiddish (answers to come in the next issue!)

“We are excited to launch this new communications vehicle. It is a real opportunity to connect and share with the community in an immediate and direct way,” says Andrea Freedman, CEO of the Federation. “Stories will be hyper-local and will be chosen for impact and timeliness. We want this newsletter to inform and share what’s most important to people in our community right now.”

In this way, the E-Bulletin aims to offer a variety of voices. Each issue, which will be emailed every second Tuesday, will offer one to two community contributions or columns from agencies or community members.

“We want to hear from you – send us your story ideas and submission requests. This is your Jewish Ottawa newsletter, and it should reflect what you want to read about,” Andrea adds.

In addition to submissions, there will be two to three local news stories written by Federation’s part-time Digital Communications Special Angelica Haggert.

Angelica is new to Ottawa and also works for Canadian Geographic magazine. The early part of her journalism career was spent in local and public radio and television. She has taught digital journalism and social media classes for community college and has done everything from running the live scoreboard for basketball games to being the face of national non-profit fundraising events. A big fan of the outdoors and of summer camp, Angelica was previously the camp director for Camp Yomee through the Windsor Jewish Community Centre. She moved to Ottawa from Windsor, Ont., during the COVID-19 pandemic and has two dogs, plays a lot of disc golf, drinks too much tea and lives with her husband in the Alta Vista neighbourhood.

"I'm thrilled to be working so closely with the Jewish community in Ottawa and look forward to using this experience as an opportunity to create ties in my new home city," said Angelica, who adds to stay tuned for an article in the next issue that focuses on the plans developing for summer camp.

To follow the E-Bulletin online, please visit https://ottawajewishbulletin.com/ and mark these social media channels as well. Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Ottawajewishbulletin, and on Twitter https://twitter.com/jbulletin.

Please note the criteria for submission: Only one or two community contributions will be accepted per issue. Submissions must meet newsworthy criteria, have impact, local interest, and timeliness. Federation reserves the right to vet and edit all submissions. Send submission requests to Pauline Colwin at pcolwin@jewishottawa.com and story ideas to Angelica Haggert at ahaggert@jewishottawa.com.

A special thank you to our newsletter sponsors: The Soloway JCC, Camp B'nai Brith of Ottawa, and Prezza Furniture, as well as our corporate sponsors GGFL and TD. We appreciate your support.