Twenty-five years later and memories of the daily grind have faded, especially those climactic Friday mornings when the phone rang with everything from demands for prominent (and free) reinsertions of family announcements — we had put Aunt Bella’s tribute to the deceased ahead of that from Aunt Rose (“he couldn’t abide her”) — to threatened libel actions for reporting what Mr X called Rabbi Y on the bimah last Shabbat.
The point, of course, was that all was incontrovertible fact to the reader once it had appeared in the black and white of the JC’s pages. Plainly, none of the journalists, sub-editors, proof readers or legal experts who saw these items into type could know where good folks stood in the pecking order of family announcements or that, the previous week, Rabbi Y had traduced Mr X from the pulpit for some minor misdemeanour. But the editor should have known. At least, readers thought so.
At the time of the Suez crisis, Lady Eden said she felt as if the Suez Canal flowed through her drawing room. On Friday mornings it felt as though the entire Jewish community flowed through the JC office.
Some complainants were regular and welcomed, my favourite undoubtedly Amelie Jakobovits, wife of the then Chief Rabbi. Why had we not reported the important speech her husband had made last week in Manchester? Because we reported it last month when he said much the same thing in Leeds. So why not, at least, a photograph — and by the way, tell your photographer to stop taking my picture from the most unflattering angle? All in the best of humour.
Then there were the other, more pro-active complainants. One, an author of a first book, a highly salacious memoir of his days as a prisoner of the Russians, was furious with the critical review he received in the JC. He wanted a personal apology from the editor. In those happy days when there was no need for front-of-the-shop security on the JC building, he marched up to reception demanding to see the editor. Requests he write in his complaint or speak with the literary editor met total refusal. It was the editor or nobody and he was not going to move until given satisfaction. When he was still there after several hours, accosting every staff member in case he were the editor, there was no choice but to give him a hearing.The outcome: we became the firmest of friends for the rest of his lifetime.
Yes, there are people and events which still remain clear in the memory. Strongest of all is the recollection of the comradeship which existed in what, in those days, was a family business, the redoubtable David Kessler, chairman and publisher, at its head.
A Buckinghamshire country squire, he was as comfortable among fellow farmers as he was with those who contributed to Jewish life and letters in Britain. While it is unlikely that chairmen appoint editors with whose fundamental philosophy they disagree, Kessler was totally principled in upholding the independence of his editors. He allowed no “back door” access for those big advertisers or communal leaders who sought to by-pass the editor. Nor did he, or his board, ever issue a policy directive to an editor. It was for me a matter of pride that I could truthfully boast that the editor of the JC had more editorial freedom than any other in Fleet Street.
There were times when the exercise of this independence put the JC under immense strain.
One that weighs heaviest with me was when Israeli forces thrust deep into Lebanon, for a time occupying Beirut and sitting inactive there when Lebanese Christian forces, with which Israel was in uncomfortable alliance, set about the massacre of Muslims in Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps.
The JC came out strongly, as did its incomparable columnist Chaim Bermant, against Israel’s continued occupation and activities in Lebanon.
There was an immediate and serious threat by powerful personalities in Anglo-Jewry to cancel all advertising in the JC and to encourage the community to withdraw its support from the newspaper. It was a serious threat which could have had dire economic consequences for the paper. But the board, rather than censoring the editor, fully supported him.
The editorial stance taken by the JC, then and on other issues, did not serve to endear the editor to the protagonists of this cause or the other. Friends were sometimes hard to make and keep. There was a concern always, in talking to one about another, a confidence might be broken. Another fact of editorial life was that, no matter the degree of friendship, the paper could never favour one communal body over another, donate free advertising space to one charity and not another.
Least of all could the paper withold the fact a shul warden was facing criminal charges or some other instance of criminality.
If at times being editor — especially of a communal newspaper — can be a lonely place, it is also a highly privileged one. I am forever grateful I enjoyed that privilege with this unique newspaper.
Geoffrey D Paul was JC editor from 1977-1990
