Our regular readers have likely noticed by now that this week’s 253rd edition of our paper and, specifically, our cover looks markedly different than the 252 editions that came before it.

You may have thought that your eyes were deceiving you, or perhaps you thought for a second that this was a different publication. However, we are the same Jewish Link of New Jersey, with a few upgrades.

Allow us to explain: After five-plus years of publication, and receiving literally hundreds of comments, emails, texts, phone calls, whispered-in-shul and loud-during-kiddush conversations, etc., containing all manner of criticism and praise about the look and feel of the paper, in the early summer we embarked on a makeover. Our design team and printer came up with a number of new looks and approaches to our cover page and basic template. It was not a simple or easy process at all for any of those involved, ourselves most of all.

We realized early on in the process how we and virtually all of our staff were very attached to the existing look and feel of the paper. However, slowly but surely we were able to finalize a new look that we admit is not all that radically different, but definitely will be noticed by all our readership this week and going forward.

So what have we done? First and foremost, we have changed the top portion of the cover page and have introduced a new paper logo that integrates the “NJ” in our name much better than we had ever done in the past. Second, the layout of the cover has now changed and we will now be looking to publish only three articles on the cover page, as opposed to our four cover articles previously. Third, great pictures and images are critical for any printed publication, and we are no different, so some space on our cover will be dedicated to that. Fourth, and finally, while our paper is still the same width, the new paper is slightly shorter in height. We do feel that the shorter height will make it slightly easier to hold for those of our readers who are more used to books, sefarim, tablets, magazines and all manner of smaller publications.

Now that you know what we are trying to achieve with the new look and feel, we hope you enjoy it, or at least feel marginally positive about it. We truly welcome and invite you to send any and all comments about the new look and feel (or anything related to our community and the paper, in fact) to us at [email protected].

By Moshe Kinderlehrer 

and Mark (Mendy) J. Schwartz
JLNJ Co-Founders & Co-Publishers