Winter Is Coming If You Don’t Subscribe

In “Game of Thrones,” when the Night King pulled the dragon out of the lake, he used massive chains. The frozen lake was in an area of the north called Hardhome.

Bloggers immediately called the producers to task for discontinuity: Where had the Night King been storing these massive chains? Another blogger replied: You silly, Hardhome Depot!

Now that I have your attention, I would like to stand in my bully pulpit and make a High Holiday Appeal.

In the three years that my team has worked to rejuvenate the Atlanta Jewish Times (or, for many of you, The Southern Israelite), I have received an outpouring of support and kudos. The team at the office has had at least a thousand people thank us for re-creating a weekly Jewish newspaper for our community.

New writers seek us out every week.

Veteran establishments contact us to ensure we are covering their events.

Advertising support has consistently grown.

We have won national journalism awards two years in a row.

Online readership has grown tenfold, and physical readership has doubled (as several friends remarked, it’s great that I now see people reading the Jewish Times when I walk into Goldbergs again).

Our response has been to grow the number of pages in an average weekly paper, ensure a higher caliber of writers and articles, cover more events, enhance our website to include blogs, more video and better search capabilities, create an annual resource guide for all of greater Jewish Atlanta — and just wait until we roll out the Atlanta Jewish Connector in a few weeks. It will be a vibrant online calendar of Jewish events and a comprehensive, dynamic resource guide in one package.

There is one facet to growing this paper for our community that has been lackluster — dare I say, abysmal? Paid subscriptions for home delivery are at the lowest point ever for this paper of 92 years.

I know that not everyone needs home delivery. I know that the U.S. Postal Service might be the least consistent federal organization we all use daily. I know that many Jewish Atlantans cannot afford $65 a year.

I also know that without the support, through paid subscriptions, of just a few thousand Atlantans, your paper’s existence cannot be justified as an ongoing concern.

I am asking you to subscribe, not so that you have the convenience of home delivery, but so that you can continue the dialogue of Jewish thought, concerns and debate, so that you can continue to read about the amazing things our children are doing in our community, so that you can continue to promote Judaism and tradition to the Jews of Atlanta, so that each and every synagogue and Jewish charitable endeavor has a way of reaching our community, so that Jewish continuity in Atlanta has one arrow in its quiver to ensure sustainability.

Only you can prevent forest fires, and only you can subscribe. If not now, when? Just do it.

Subscribe, Sustain, Support

Your Community, Your Paper

I think it was Tyrion who said, “A mind needs a newspaper like a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge.”

Click here to subscribe online or call or email 404-883-2130 or Jen@AtlJewishTimes.com.