Due to the miracles of modern printing and the ingenuity of various Jewish Link readers and staff members, communities around the world have finally begun to understand the need to offer copies of The Jewish Link newspaper every erev Shabbat, wherever they may be in the world. Readers not only suggest it to their tour operators and hoteliers as they would clean water, better wifi, a petting zoo and American-style coffee; they demand it.
For example, The Jewish Link is now available in the Royal Palace gift shop in Fez, Morocco, just a stone’s throw from the historic Moroccan Jewish community hotels and restaurants, giving Teaneck Jews on vacation the ability to be metaphorically transported back home, wherever they may actually be. You’ve heard of the armchair traveler? We are now in the age of The Jewish Link Shabbos security blanket.
“It’s really important that I have regular access to Shayna B.’s advice column on Shabbos,” said Jessica Apfelbaum, age 12, an Edison native who recently visited the Jewish community in Casablanca with her family. “I asked the driver how far Fez was to see if we could get The Jewish Link in time for Shabbos, but I ended up having to wait until Sunday. I wasn’t sure I could make it, but luckily we took last week’s paper on the plane so I just reviewed Shayna B.’s old column. It was still pretty good,” she said. Apfelbaum reported that she was finally able to enjoy her new copy of The Link at the Hassan II mosque, one of the key tour locations in Casablanca.
Another reader was thrilled to find The Jewish Link available in the famously sunny Sahara Desert, which was coordinated by the tour guide, who is the brother of the person who manages the Royal Palace gift shop in Fez. Alphonse ‘Al’ Dar El Makhzen explained that some Stamford natives on his brother Sal’s tour were very passionate about a fantastically convoluted serial novel by a woman who may or may not be named Ariela Aron. “If they send us the files in time, we have a printer in Asilah, a quaint fishing village which just got the internet, and really wants to use it; they promised to run up the copies and bring them to our hotel,” he said. The result was spectacular. “The fishermen ended up having a passionate argument about how to interpret Martin Bodek’s ‘Cuff Link’ column during Parshat Terumah, so they are anxiously awaiting next week’s issue,” said Al.
In Australia, which some people consider an entire world away and envision as completely full of kangaroos, Jewish Link Marketing Associate Meir Popowitz is looking for someone to take over his role of delivering The Jewish Link to the Opera House by plane every Wednesday evening, noting that he has spent the better part of the last three months flying to and from Sydney. “I am barely home in Teaneck for more than two days—sometimes with an out-of-town wedding singer gig over Shabbat—before I have to fly off again to deliver the papers. We should probably get some staff here on the ground in Australia,” he said, while batting away a joey who was trying to steal a copy of The Jewish Link out of his back pocket. “But we have a very big software challenge with the printing presses in Australia.”
“In the southern hemisphere, every paper we’ve sent to Australia ends up printing upside down and backwards. You know how words look backwards if you try to take a picture of yourself wearing a graphic T-shirt in the mirror? That’s how Australia is with The Jewish Link,” explained Meir. On the other hand, added Meir, he’s accumulated so many airline miles that he will not have to fly economy anywhere for the next 17.5 years.
Comparatively, distribution is less of an issue at The Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem, where Teaneck’s Elana Kaplan recently picked up a copy. Ruby Kaplan (no relation, or is there?), a well-known local real estate agent, recently petitioned the Israeli bookstore chain Steimatzky’s, which has seven locations in Jerusalem and 128 branches in total, to carry The Jewish Link along with its well-thumbed copies of the Jerusalem Post English editions.
Taboga, Jamaica and Negril, Panama have recently received Jewish Link newsstand dispensers in local hotels, and the only issues so far with those locations have been editorial, with various Panamanian hat makers and hot weather clothing manufacturers clamoring to be included in The Jewish Link’s monthly fashion sections. Seasonally, the editors generally only consider warm weather clothing as part of the windup to summer, but a global edition may now have to take weather patterns around the world into account.
Fashion is certainly less of an issue on the slopes in Colorado, where various lodges are stocking The Jewish Link. “The only concern with my recent Jewish Link issue is your sports section; the MGBL and the Yeshiva League sports charts are great but you don’t have any ski rankings,” said Jeremy Bloom, a two-time Olympian and Colorado native. “As a World Cup gold medalist and a three-time World Champion, I am the only athlete in history to ever ski in the Winter Olympics and also be drafted into the National Football League, playing as a return specialist and a wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles. Is it so much to ask that The Jewish Link consider skiing as a Jewish sport, suitable for coverage?” Bloom expressed concern that David Roher’s column about being a triathlete rarely delves into the beauty of cold weather sports, and offered his services as The Jewish Link’s newest cold weather sports columnist. Unfortunately, The Jewish Link has run out of room since 27 new columns—including The Link’s Gambit chess column, The Kid’s Link Superfan and a column about how to brine your own olives and make cotton candy grapes at home—have been launched during the first three months of the calendar year.
By Jewish Link World Headquarters Staff
