February 2010
4 posts
28 Days, 28 Ideas #27: Spiritual Birthright
Today’s idea comes from Jay Michaelson (@jaymichaelson), author of Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala), as well as two other books and over 200 articles. A columnist for the Forward, Huffington Post, and Tikkun, Michaelson was recently named to the “Forward 50” list of the most influential Jewish leaders in America. He is also executive director of ...
28 Days, 28 Ideas #20: The Plan B Institute for a...
Today’s idea comes from Charles Lenchner, an online organizing consultant who has worked with nonprofits and political organizations in Israel, Palestine and the United States. He has been active in Israeli and Jewish peace organizations since 1985.
In the movies, when something goes horribly awry, a supporting character will ask, “Do you have a Plan B?” Generally, the ...
28 Days, 28 Ideas #13: Birthright Diaspora
Today’s idea comes from Eli Valley, a writer and artist living in New York. His comics appear monthly in The Forward, and he is the author of The Great Jewish Cities of Central and Eastern Europe. His website is evcomics.com.
Eli’s idea is Birthright Diaspora, a global initiative to provide Jews with immersion experiences in far-flung Jewish communities.
Birthright Diaspora will make Jews...
28 Days, 28 Ideas #6: Tzedakah Box 2.0
Today’s idea comes from Ari Wallach, co-creator of The Great Schlep. Ari has been working at the intersection of business, politics and communications for over 12 years. He is a partner at studioBenZion and was formerly VP of Corporate Development at Seed Media Group, where he was responsible for strategic alliances and business development. He serves on the board of the American Jewish...
31. Joogle Labs
Welp, this is it. 31 of 31. Over the past month, I’ve shared with you ideas for new technology platforms, Web publications, organizations and initiatives that aim to address the needs and transform the future of 21st century Jewry. As I said in the beginning, not all of these ideas are winners, but hopefully most of them have been illuminating and thought provoking in some way.
It’s...
January 2010
30 posts
30. Progressive Israel Fellowship
I intended for No. 30 to be a completely different and off-the-wall idea (a transnational Jewish republic), but as the crackdown on human rights organizations in Israel continues unabated, now with an officially orchestrated attack on the New Israel Fund, I’ve decided to give preference to another idea I’ve been kicking around: A fellowship program to develop the next generation of...
29. Jews for Just & Compassionate Drug Policy
Perhaps the most overlooked social justice issue in America today upon which the Jewish community can have a greater impact is the war on drugs.
There are many reasons why Jews should care about the drug war:
We have a responsibility to to be merciful towards those less fortunate — to care for the orphan and window, the weak and downtrodden.
We are obligated to heal the sick — to treat and...
28. Jewish Non-Profit Employees Union
In my last post I proposed a hechsher tzedek — a certification of ethical compliance — for Jewish non-profits. This certification would recognize exemplary behavior by our communal institutions with regards to labor practices, financial responsibility, transparency, efficacy, etc.
While such a certification can go a long way in terms of acknowledging the efforts of compliant organizations and...
27. Hechsher Tzedek for Jewish Non-Profits
This idea is one that manifested during the course of a breakout brainstorming session at the recent Jumpstart/JESNA/UJA Toronto confab. As a participant, I had only a hand in seeding the idea and cannot take anywhere near full credit for it — it was a group process. Yet it’s one that will probably go unknown and forgotten unless I mention it here.
In his State of the Union Address this...
26. Universal Jewish Membership Rewards Card
There are only six days left to 31 Days, 31 Ideas. My how the time flies. Today’s idea begins a new theme. No more Web sites from here on out. The next six projects will all be big ideas for organizational initiatives.
As I’ve oft stated over the last month, being Jewish is really expensive. Combine the cost of synagogue dues, High Holidays tickets, JCC membership, Federation...
25. Survivors Narrative Project
I am a grandchild of four Holocaust survivors. That should tell you a lot about me.
You may also find telling the fact that stacked atop that burdened blessing, my parents are professional Holocaust educators and survivors’ rights activists. My mother, Jeanette, was a cofounder of the 2nd Generation Network and the recent author of “Why Should I Care: Lessons from the...
24. Jewish Book of the Month Club
This next idea is another one so stunningly obvious, you have to cringe at the fact that it doesn’t yet exist. Jewish Book of the Month Club anyone?
I admit it. I’m a satisfied member of PBC. Great titles, great discounts, and all I have to do is check the mail. So nu? Why isn’t there a Jewish BOMC? There are dozens of quality Jewish and non-Jewish publishers printing a...
23. ProgressiveJews.org: HuffPo for ProgJews
Continuing on the theme of being unabashedly progressive, as with Mazal Tov Cocktail, my next idea is for an online portal for progressive Jewish political news, opinion and action. It’s called ProgressiveJews.org.
Jews are overwhelmingly progressive. It’s high time we stop debating this fact, accept it, and move on. Yet, while only a minority of Jews are decidedly politically...
22. Mazal Tov Cocktail: An Encyclopaedia of Jewish...
Jewish neoconservative demagogue Norman Podhoretz has given up. Jews are liberals, he accepts in his new book, “Why Are Jews Liberals?”, whether he likes it or not — whether he thinks it consistent with our tradition or not. Though Podhoretz would like to disclaim our progressive heritage, I for one am enamored and emboldened by it. I take much pride in and gain much reassurance from...
21. Hymietown: The Jewish Gawker
My friends and long-time readers are likely aware that I first made my mark in the Jewish community as a blogger, launching one of the first ever Jewish blogs, Jewschool, back in 2001, long before blogging had become mainstream. Even before Jewschool, I had been blogging on Jewish issues on various other blogs I had founded (going all the way back to 1998), and following the success of Jewschool,...
20. Jew It Yourself: The Jewish Catalog 2.0
With few exceptions, most of the projects I’ve presented thus far are ideas I’ve been kicking around and have not yet moved forward on, rather than projects currently in the works. This next idea is one on which I’ve already begun production, and which, G-d willing, I will be able to unveil to the world by the end of this year. It is the Jew It Yourself flagship Web site.
The...
19. JStock: The Jewish Designer's Marketplace
As a designer working on creative print and Web projects for Jewish organizations for well over a decade, one of the issues I encounter frequently is the need for high quality design resources — stock images & video footage, illustrations, fonts, commercial music, HTML templates, etc. While the Web is by no means devoid of materials for those working on Jewish communications, there is no...
18. JDocs: Jewish Documentary Film Portal
In my last post, I mentioned that I’m something of a gamer. And as a media consumer in general, I’m also something of a film buff. And just as I aspire to design my own games, as evidenced by my last post, I am an aspiring filmmaker as well. I’ve been at work on a documentary film about the relationship between Jews and drug use for many years, in fact. I also have a...
17. JCiv: Civilization for the Jews
Today’s idea is JCiv, an adaptation of the empire-building strategy game Civilization based upon a Jewish narrative.
I’m an aspiring gamer. Which is to say, I’m not precisely a gamer, despite owning two consoles, because I spend much more of my time working and reading these days than playing video games (that is a total lie). When I do find the time to play, there’s one...
16. Social Auctions & Simcha Registry
This evening’s triple-play (apparently it’s 31 Ideas, 1 Rushed Evening) will be capped with a completely new idea I haven’t even thought out a great deal yet, but I think has wide market potential, far beyond the Jewish community. I call it Social Auctions.
The basic idea? Create a Web site kind of like eBay, where users can auction off their belongings. But, instead of the...
15. Kickstarter + Back Office for Jewish...
You may have noticed by now that I have a lot of ideas that could use outside funding and support. And if I’ve got 31 ideas (at least), there’s got to be dozens if not hundreds of others in the Jewish community with at least one good idea and the need for some support. But support ain’t easy to come by.
I recently stirred up a mini-shitstorm in Jewish philanthropic circles with...
14. Jewish CMS/CRM & Hosting Platform
As a Web designer working in the Jewish community for over a decade, one of the issues that has arisen repeatedly in my work has been the need for a Content Management System (CMS) and basic Constituent Relations Management (CRM) platform tailored to the needs of Jewish organizations. Whether the client has been a community center, a synagogue, a camp, a cultural institution, or what have you,...
Coming in February: 28 Days, 28 Ideas
I am very pleased to announce that, over the 28 days of February, I will be joined by Jewschool, Jewcy, JTA, The Forward, eJewish Philanthropy and the Jewish Federations of North America in presenting 28 more ideas to transform the Jewish future. Each week, the seven participants will take turns posting a new idea from a member of their community.
That’s 28 more ideas that have the...
12 & 13. Jewocracy and Universal Jewish CRM Login
One of the greatest causes of alienation and disaffection by Jews from the organized Jewish community is the feeling of being misrepresented by our communal institutions on issues of religious and political import. Which is not to say that Jews disagree with each and every position mainstream organizations take — for they agree with many — but rather that the process by which our de facto...
11. JMetros
Yesterday, I spoke about ShulShopper, a tool which helps individuals find and create personally meaningful prayer experiences in their local community. Today, we’re going to take that model to its logical extension with Yelp meets Outside.in for the Jewish community, or a project otherwise known as JMetros.
Navigating the terrain of one’s local Jewish community can be quite...
10. ShulShopper for Facebook
Over the last couple of days we’ve looked at two tools, a Jewish Book Builder and a Jewish Liturgical Music Database, that would facilitate the needs of individuals and communities interested in creating for themselves more personalized prayer experiences.
Continuing on this theme of empowered Judaism, today we’re going to look at a Web application that helps people find a synagogue...
9. Niggun Please: Jewish Liturgical Music Database
Yesterday I talked about a tool, the Jewish Book Builder, that would help individuals and communities create their own prayerbooks and looked at some current implementations of that idea, including the Open Siddur Project. In my post, I described “a future in which creating customized siddurim, bentshers, haggadot, chumashim and all manner of liturgical and scriptural books is as commonplace...
8. Jewish Book Builder
Yesterday, I showed you the Open Source Beit Midrash, an application that would take advantage of the XML Jewish texts repository I proposed earlier in the week. Today I’m going to show you another project that would benefit from said repository: the Jewish Book Builder.
There are a lot of reasons people want to make their own Jewish prayerbooks. Whether it’s their family...
7. The Open Source Beit Midrash
Yesterday, I spoke about the need to create a repository of sacred Jewish texts encoded in XML, a format that would enable software developers to take the creation of Jewish educational Web applications to the next level.
Today, I’m going to show you an application I’ve been dreaming about in various incarnations for about five years, The Open Source Beit Midrash, which will only be...
6. Jewish texts XML specification, repository and...
Today’s topic is really not going to dazzle anyone, but it’s fundamental to fostering a culture of innovation around educational software development in the Jewish community.
If there was one thing that, I believe, could spark a creative revolution, it would be providing unfettered access to the sum-total of public domain Jewish texts (Tanakh, Misnah, Gemara, Meforshim, etc.) as an...
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5. Jonah: Jewish Educational Link Directory
Yesterday, I proposed an application, Surfcasting, that would create an exchange of free, online tutorials for those interested in learning about Jewish life. Today’s idea centers around helping students and educators discover the highest quality Jewish educational content online.
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A number of years ago, I attended a conference called Rejewvenation, during which I laid the groundwork...
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4. Surfcasting
Yesterday we looked at a tool that could help increase the fluency with which people write in Hebrew on the Web. Today, we’re going to look at a different tool that can help create more free educational opportunities for those interested in self-directed Jewish learning online.
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Screencasting — that is, capturing video from one’s computer screen and sharing it with others — is an...
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3. Hebrew Input Widget
Today’s idea isn’t particularly striking nor sexy, but it is extremely practical and useful for those of us who operate Jewish content Web sites and would like to incorporate for our readers the ability to comment and search in Hebrew.
Anyone with a Windows or Macintosh computer has the ability to add support for Hebrew typing. But not everyone knows how to do this or has access to...
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2. Pop-Up Jewish Dictionary
Yesterday I introduced Pop-Up Parasha, a Javascript widget that would create interactive hyperlinks from biblical references.
Today I’m going to build on the idea of virally-distributed Jewish reference tools a bit more, with a widget that can help break down even more barriers for Jewish novices interested in delving further into the study of their culture and traditions.
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“I...
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1. Pop-up Parasha
I love the Sunlight Foundation, the D.C.-based philanthropic foundation which provides support to hackers working on software projects that increase transparency and accountability in government. My ultimate wish is to see the creation of something similar for the Jewish community — a laboratory that develops solutions that increase, if not the transparency of our communal institutions, the...
December 2009
2 posts
9 tags
Introducing 31 Days, 31 Ideas
Hi, my name is Daniel Sieradski. I’m a 30 year-old Brooklynite, an on-again, off-again observant Jew, and a progressive Jewish community activist.
For over 10 years, I have been working as a web designer, digital strategist, and blogger within the Jewish community. In that time, I have worked for dozens of community based organizations on a freelance basis, as a full-time staff member for...