Letter from the Past Editor-In-Chief

From its humble beginnings as a small adult education training centre, TAV now finds itself in the final stages of building its third campus structure as well as continuing to solidify its place within Montreal’s society.

Each student that walks through the doors of this College lends themselves not only to the story of TAV but also, to its future.

TAV is unique in that it is unlike any other College in the world. It adapts itself to the diverse, culturally-rich, and constantly expansive urban city of Montreal, while also never forgetting its roots as a community center for job training and foundational academics for the Jewish-Montreal cohort.

The TAV Times serves a crucial role not only as the gatekeeper of TAV’s history but also that of the city of Montreal by extension. The TAV Times began as a simple sheet of paper to announce the monthly events at the College, but it rapidly grew into a multimedia, member-based, journalism cooperative and its future is only limited by how far imagination can be stretched.

If journalism, by nature, is to seek the truth, criticize power, and present fact, then as founder of the TAV Times, my ultimate hope is that it will do just that and beyond.

To conclude, I leave you with a story and a thought about thoughts. During a class trip to Ottawa with my high school newspaper team, a writer for the Canadian Parliamentary Press invited us to go “off-tour” and visit the Press Gallery offices inside the Parliament building. We went inside the break room where the writer told us stories about the many moments that happened in this room throughout history, mostly stories about prime ministers sharing drinks with journalists. However, engraved in the concrete slab of the fireplace were words of wisdom about journalism that I’ve never forgotten and maybe these words can inspire someone else as well:

“But words are things, add a small drop of ink, falling, like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.”

To the newest TAV Times team and their editor-in-chief, I wish you only the best with this project. Remember that you will only get from this experience what you put in.

Justin Hand-Gregory