31 Days, 31 Ideas

28 Days, 28 Ideas #27: Spiritual Birthright

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:00:00 -0500

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 Nehirim, a national nonprofit organization of GLBT Jews and allies. In 2008-09, he spent five months on silent meditation retreat, mostly in Nepal.

Ask anyone who’s gone on a seven-day meditation retreat, or a weeklong Jewish spirituality retreat, and they’ll tell you that the experience is life-changing. It’s not merely a pleasant weekend, or interesting few days of text study. Real spiritual retreats – whether traditionally religious, Renewal-style, yoga-based, meditation-oriented, musar-focused, or any number of other flavors – are transformative, not informative. When they work, they change the self, often in radical ways. Spirituality may not be for everyone, but for those for whom it is, it often becomes the center of Jewish identity and practice. Like Israel experiences or immersive social justice programming, spirituality is one of the many items on the Jewish salad bar which, for many people, can become the main course.

Yet spirituality remains, as yet, a phenomenon of the fringe. Yes, there are a handful of Jewish retreat centers around the country, and organizations like the Institute for Jewish Spirituality which seek to promote spirituality in synagogues. But spiritual retreats are expensive, they are rare, and they are often poorly promoted due to lack of funds. Immersive Jewish spiritual experiences could be, I believe, one of the single most effective means of engaging and inspiring young Jews – particularly those turned off by those who think that exciting davening means rattling your jewelry on Rosh Hashanah. Yet it is woefully underutilized.

Imagine a Spiritual Birthright, which subsidized a seven-day immersive spiritual retreat for young people aged 22-30. There would be no need to create new programming; like Birthright Israel, the Spiritual Birthright would subcontract out programming to groups like Chochmat HaLev, Makom Sholom, Elat Chayyim, Aleph: The Alliance for Jewish Renewal, The Carlebach Shul, the Makom program at the Manhattan JCC, The Iyyun Center, Nehirim (the organization I direct), The Romemu Center, Wilderness Torah, the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and dozens of other spiritual organizations around the country. (Sorry if I left yours out.) There could be Orthodox retreats and Renewal ones; silent meditation and ecstatic singing and dancing; hippied-out, touchy feely opportunities to explore your feelings, and misnagdic yuppie yoga. The criteria for qualification would simply be that a program must provide a seven-day immersion experience in some form of spiritual practice. Perhaps “spiritual practice” may even be defined broadly, to include Talmud study, for example – although it should not be so broad that it encompasses existing categories such as social justice work.

The Spiritual Birthright program is a way to connect the hundreds of thousands of young Jews interested in spirituality – especially the tens of thousands who leave Judaism in order to find it – to the organizations which can provide them a life-changing experience. Make no mistake, in my own experience and in the lives of many people I know, a seven-day retreat is even more powerful than a trip to Israel. My first such retreat, back in 2002, changed my life forever and renewed my connection to Judaism. It was like getting the answer key to Jewish practice and the words of the Bible. And but for it, I would surely not be the Jew I am today.

Spiritual Birthright will not be another cute program. It will generate the best return on investment, in terms of Jewish inspiration and involvement on a per capita basis, of any weeklong Jewish program in the world – including Birthright Israel. It’s that powerful. It will change the Jewish world.

This post is part of the series 28 Days, 28 Ideas. Check out yesterday’s idea, , over at the Jewish Federations of North America. And be sure to check out tomorrow’s idea — the last in the series — at Jewschool. You can also visit 28days28ideas.com for the full list of ideas.

28 Days, 28 Ideas #20: The Plan B Institute for a Jewish Future

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:03:00 -0500

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 answer is no; hilarity or suspense ensues, but in the end the hero saves the day.

Jews don’t have a hero and our history is replete with bad endings. That’s why we need a think tank devoted to Plan B. The Plan B Institute for a Jewish Future will be devoted to asking painfully difficult questions about the consequences of Plan A passing the point of failure. The answers to those questions must include the outlines, at least, of a Plan B that we can fall back on.

Plan A – Current Reality

Let’s define our terms. Plan A is a global Jewish community in which over 2/3’s live in North America or Israel. Jews in America and the Middle East are wealthier, more educated and more politically powerful than nearly anyone else. We thrive, in the end, because of American military and economic power. This is true for us in the United States, and for our brethren in Israel.

Recency bias is a well studied psychological phenomenon in which our unconscious mind places undue emphasis on events in the recent past. It seems strange to argue that Jews suffer from this, given our commitment to memory and tradition, but recency bias is a human trait we all have. Assuming that things will continue more or less as before is a fantasy that allows us to lead normal lives. It is also the kind of fantasy that made it near impossible for Jews to figure out what Hitler had in mind for them.

Plan A captures the range of reasonable, sensible options we discuss in the media and in all other Jewish think tanks and policy institutes. Plan B represents the range of speculative, unlikely and horrific possibilities that we fear, while at the same time dismiss out of hand. But given our history of genocide and persecution – can we really afford to discount the possibility that Plan A might not work out, and we’ll be forced to come up with a Plan B in short order?

Plan B – Unlikely, But Possible

What if efforts to preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state fail, resulting in an exodus of millions of Israeli Jews?

What if the global economy enters a long and severe depression, with an accompanying rise in political extremism and upheaval around the world?

What if Jewish wealth, U.S. wealth, global financial wealth turn out to be imaginary sums that vanish and dwindle, leaving only the material world in its place?

What if American power suffers a drastic and long term decline, with countries such as China, Russia, Brazil and India setting the rules for a new international order?

The gift of prophecy no longer rests upon the world. So while that means that predictors of doom should not be automatically heeded, we have many examples where we might have been better off listening more closely. The recent collapse of the housing bubble is a case in point; in the years 2004-2006, numerous economists and researchers for financial firms warned that a bubble existed and would lead to painful results. But the decision makers at the Federal Reserve and Wall Street insisted that this was not the case.

When it comes to the future of Israel, in contrast, we have numerous political and military figures in Israel and the United States warning of an impending disaster. Namely, that the Palestinians will no longer be in line for a state alongside Israel, but will instead achieve a one state solution with the loss of Jewish sovereignty, or Israel will continue to rule the Palestinians in de facto Apartheid, with no end in sight.

Other options may be even worse. Fears of an Iranian nuclear weapon, of a mad Israeli effort to expel large number of Palestinians (again), or the internal collapse of Israeli vitality are also in the air. We fear those outcomes because they are possible, not impossible. Are we planning for them, or merely hoping to avoid them?

Our Think Tank and Policy Infrastructure

We have many think tanks, from the right wing, pro defense Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) to the inward looking Jewish Institute for Jewish & Community Research. We have outfits around the world devoted to Jews and Europe, Jews and demography, Jews and anti-Semitism, Jews and education, and of course Judaic scholarly research. But we do not have what we might call our safeguard in case all those other think tanks prove to be wrong about predicting the future, and unable to avert future disasters for our people.

This omission is striking. After all, much of our political language is full of the fear of negative outcomes, especially the destruction of the Jewish people. (“Never Again!”) How realistic is that language, when practically nothing is being done to prepare for the possibility that our strengths will not avert the very outcomes we fear?

We Are Not Alone

One parallel to the Plan B Institute are the many groups forming to prepare for ‘Peak Oil’, the upcoming end of the age of cheap oil. Without judging the merits of this scenario, it is noteworthy that many supporters are busy learning urban agriculture, converting vehicles to vegetable oil, and consciously imagining what a future without cheap oil will look like. Post Peak Living is but one example of this trend.

Artists have started to imagine what a post Israel world will actually look like. My favorite example is Ronen Eidelman’s Medinat Weimar project, in which he calls for the establishment of a Jewish state to be established in the modern German State of Thuringia.

Israeli film maker Yael Bartana has produced a film that imagines a cry from the anguished heart of Poland asking for 3 million Jews to return – for Poland’s sake. Another Israeli artist created in a series of chilling photographs what a refugee camp for Jews from Israel might look like in some dark future. (Sadly, I could not find the link.)

What is happening is that some Jewish and Israeli artists are taking seriously the existential fears of Israelis. These efforts are likely to continue, helping to spread awareness that the world is indeed a more chaotic and dangerous place than our recency bias would have us believe.

The Plan B Institute

My call is for a Plan B Institute for ‘a’ Jewish Future, and not ‘the’ Jewish Future. We don’t know what the future holds. But we know that throughout our history, we have evolved in fascinating and unexpected ways as a people, often in response to world historical events no one would wish upon themselves. Isn’t it time to devote a small fraction of our resources so we can be just ahead of the curve, instead of just behind it? It’s interesting to ponder, where would we be today if there was a Plan B institute in Germany, in 1933? We can’t change the past. But we can have a Plan B Institute to ensure our future.

This post is part of the series 28 Days, 28 Ideas. Check out yesterday’s idea, “Reducing Barriers to Entering the Jewish Community”, over at the Jewish Federations of North America. And be sure to check out tomorrow’s idea at Jewschool. You can also visit 28days28ideas.com for the full list of ideas as they progress.

28 Days, 28 Ideas #13: Birthright Diaspora

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:47:00 -0500

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 proud again.

It’s a strange thing to say, isn’t it? For one thing, despite the insistent proclamations of Jewish fund-raising letters and Israeli political and cultural leaders, most Jews in the Diaspora are not living on the brink of physical, spiritual or cultural devastation. In fact, by and large they’re pretty proud of who they are already. Secondly, to associate Diaspora experiences with “pride” is to break one of the major taboos of modern Jewish education. Israel is the pinnacle of pride; Diaspora the domain of destruction. That’s why education about the Diaspora designed for fifteen-year olds has meant role-playing “discrimination, persecution, forced conversion, outmarriage, assimilation, [and] (im)migration” so that “the message of a diminishing Jewish world and Israel as the only country with a growing Jewish population should be apparent.”

Yay, let’s role-play some more!

Even Birthright Israel, for all its enormous accomplishments as a global immersion-based educational vehicle and new Jewish rite-of-passage, suggests a binary notion of Jewish history and identity: “Israel made Jews proud … [it] represents the ideological revolution in which Jews became the ‘subjects’ of history rather than the ‘objects.’”

And yet, as it turns out, more than a few Jews have been proud actors on the historical stage since the Roman conquest of Palestine in 70 CE. It’s time to expand our notions of positive Jewish identity and at long last move beyond an ideology that fretfully masquerades self-hatred as Jewish empowerment. By digging through centuries of global Jewish life, Birthright Diaspora will help transform Jewish self-awareness and break the dichotomy of “hero” and “victim” that has handicapped internal Jewish intellectual inquiry for decades. The goal is not merely widespread immersion experiences in global Jewish communities but a renewed understanding of Diaspora as a Birthright that forms the roots of Jewish consciousness. If implemented effectively, Birthright Diaspora can lead to an existential transformation in the way Jews and Israelis view themselves and the world.

The program is not meant to replace Birthright Israel but rather to exist in tandem as a supplementary option for Jewish education and identity enrichment for young adults. Although there currently exist various Jewish educational trips in the Diaspora, many of these perpetuate longstanding ideologies either by focusing on death and destruction or by positioning Israeli or American visitors as spiritual or economic rescuers of the locals. Birthright Diaspora will have a different focus: immersion experiences in living Jewish communities, past and present, in which the visitors learn from, and share with, the local Jewish populations. Participants as well as destinations will be selected by lottery. To ensure geographic diversity, destinations will be at least 1,000 miles away from, and in countries different from, the respective participant’s place of birth or current residence. For ten-day trips, it is possible to aim for immersions in three or four communities in a particular region, but this can be adjusted based on the region and proximity of communities. Like Birthright Israel, Birthright Diaspora will utilize various trip providers, many of which will focus on particular aspects of Diaspora Jewish life and/or cohorts of participants, with similar ideological constraints: Just as Birthright Israel does not allow trips to be run by Jews for Jesus or Jews for Hezbollah, Birthright Diaspora will not permit the trips to become necrophiliac surveys of Diaspora doom.

It cannot be stressed enough: The focus of the trips will be the life of the communities, past and present. Jewish sites will be used as launching pads for discussions and experiences of local Jewish history, religion, art, folklore and contemporary life. Participants will explore the ways in which the dynamics of Diaspora formed the backbone of modern Jewish consciousness intellectually, culturally, socially and ethically. Periods of trial will not be elided, but neither will they be fetishized. In an effort to offer a more nuanced picture of the Diaspora than has generally been provided, special attention will be paid to the intermingling and cross-fertilization of Jewish and non-Jewish cultures that has occurred in every community and in almost every period of Jewish history. Whether in Canada, Brazil or India, participants will hear tales of communities as well as families, both famous and little-known, and explore the ways individuals celebrated, wrestled with, contributed to, fled, and drew inspiration from Jewish civilization and from the customs and philosophies of the outside world. Birthright Diaspora will also utilize “mifgashim” among current Jewish residents in the same age group as the visitors. There will be great opportunities for service learning programs, but in keeping with Birthright Diaspora’s efforts to break ideological dichotomies, Jewish poorism will not be permitted. Instead, service learning will be provided on a reciprocal basis. For example, if a group from Houston is involved in repairing a cemetery in Cracow, a group from Poland will repair a cemetery (or engage in another local service activity) as part of its visit to Houston.

Finally, Birthright Diaspora will not be a success unless it also includes trips by Israeli young adults to Jewish communities around the world. This is partly to emphasize Jewish solidarity and the equality of all Diaspora communities, including Israel; partly to reorient an education system skewed by assumptions of geographic supremacy; partly to stress the importance of Diaspora life as a vital factor in the formation of Jewish consciousness; and partly to educate young Israelis about worldwide Jewish life as participants and observers rather than as emissaries, shepherds or eulogists. A massive advertising campaign will be implemented to educate Israelis that the Diaspora is their birthright; hopefully the trips will become a part of Israel’s education system. In fact, there are added benefits to global educational programs geared towards Israelis. Imagine the possibilities of Israelis learning about Jewish life, for instance, in countries that have rights enshrined in Constitutions; or in societies that protect the freedom of religion and the integrity of the state by scrupulously separating the two; or in nations that vigilantly guard the democratic and human rights of all their citizens and even of their non-citizens.

The benefits do not end there. It is a cliche to note that the world has become interconnected as never before. What isn’t often noted is that in the Jewish world, the interconnectivity often manifests itself through ripples emanating from the perceived center of Jewish life in Jerusalem. While it is inaccurate to blame antisemitism on Israeli policy, it is equally fallacious to deny that the policies instituted by the world’s only Jewish sovereignty have repercussions on the world’s attitudes towards Jews. One goal of Birthright Diaspora will be to help reorient Israelis into global citizenship through interactions with Diaspora communities and through education about the history of Diaspora Jewish involvement in the larger world.

After all, one paradox of modern Zionism is that we are told that Israel has freed us from the shackles of the ghetto, both physically and, crucially, mentally. And yet, some of Israel’s most vociferous advocates today claim that Israel has become “the ‘Jew’ among the states of the world.” Clearly, the ghetto mentality has not disappeared; it has merely transposed itself into a national identity. Hopefully, Birthright Diaspora will begin to alter this construct by helping Israel break out of its ghetto walls.

I know, it is the absolute height of arrogance for an American to suggest Israel implement a system of education with an eye towards social engineering. For the past six decades, it’s been a one-way street of Zionist education with an eye towards social engineering in the Diaspora. This has never been called “arrogant” but, rather, “the status quo.” But it’s time, for the sake of all of us, to change the paradigm. If Birthright Diaspora helps institute new ways of thinking in Israel, maybe it can actually help lead to an end to Israel’s isolation and, who knows, perhaps even a road towards peace between Israel and its neighbors. If this happens, Birthright Diaspora has the potential to be the most Zionist innovation since the first Israeli borrowed felafel from the Egyptians.

This post is part of the series 28 Days, 28 Ideas. Check out yesterday’s idea, “Collaborating for Community Safety”, over at the Jewish Federations of North America. And be sure to check out tomorrow’s idea at Jewschool. You can also visit 28days28ideas.com for the full list of ideas as they progress.

28 Days, 28 Ideas #6: Tzedakah Box 2.0

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:48:00 -0500

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 Committee’s ACCESS program and has been a past participant of the Hillel Spitzer Forum, The Bronfman Reboot initiative and The Jewish Week’s “The Conversation.” You can follow Ari on Twitter at @ariw.

Ari’s idea is for the Tzedakah Box 2.0, a digital tzedakah (charity) box that enables individuals to make quick credit card donations to the charity of their choice, and which breathes new life into the Jewish tradition of using tzedakah boxes to make charitable contributions.

I grew up, like most Jews my age, plunking my pocket change at the end of the day into a JNF tzedakah box. In terms of (Jewish) acoustical branding, the sound of coins hitting the bottom of that blue tin box is right up there with the shofar and “Hava Negilah.” But in the age of online and mobile donations, the tzedakah box has become a relic of the past. So how can we update this idea into make it relevant for the 21st century?

Take an iPhone or an iPod Touch and outfit it with Square, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s new credit card reader for Apple mobile devices.
Put it in a heavy, hard rubber case styled to look like the classic JNF tzedakah box.
Have the Square credit card reader recessed on top for horizontal swiping, make the glass screen flush against the surface of the box, hide the home button to prevent users from quitting the donation application, provide key-lock access to the mobile device itself for charging, and add a laptop-style lock to prevent anyone from running off with it.
Create an application that allows users to select their preferred charity, specify a donation amount, enter their email address, swipe their credit card, and get instantly emailed a receipt for their donation. Device owners can pre-configure their favorite charities for users to choose from. Upon a successful transaction, users will hear the classic sound of coins dropping into a tzedakah box.

Here’s a very rough mockup of the device, with a traditional credit card swiper in place of the Square:

I can see this going in a lobby at a JCC or as you walk into the latest JDub powered concert.

Version 3.0? That one is easy: Text the word “TzedakahJNF” to a shortcode like 181818 to give $18 dollars to any org (eg. - TzedakahRepairTheWorld or TzedakahGreenPeace).

The Jewish Week recently asked “Will mobile giving take off in the Jewish world?”

With Tzedakah Box 2.0 and 3.0 the answer to that question could be an emphatic “Yes!”

This post is part of the series 28 Days, 28 Ideas. Check out yesterday’s idea, “The Idea Accelerator Model”, over at the Jewish Federations of North America. And be sure to check out tomorrow’s idea at Jewschool. You can also visit 28days28ideas.com for the full list of ideas as they progress.

31. Joogle Labs

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:56:00 -0500

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 been an interesting experiment and I am grateful to all who joined me this past month — particularly those who reached out to offer words of support and direct assistance for several of these projects. I am also especially grateful to my fiancee, Ris, who put up with many a late night with my eyes glued to the screen.

As noted in my op-ed on Jewish incubators last month and in the various subsequent responses, being a Jewish social entrepreneur is not easy. The opportunities for Jewish innovators are few and far between, and even then, the best of these opportunities — and even success itself — can be economically prohibitive.

Frankly, I don’t want to max out two credit cards and pray that one day I’ll raise enough money to pay myself a reasonable salary. It’s just not the lifestyle choice for me. So until my time comes, I’ll be working a steady job and eking out my projects in the twilight hours. (Notice the posting times as of late?)

The thing is, the Jewish community is already cutting my check, and I am a very satisfied digital strategist for a very remarkable organization. But dozens more organizations are leaning on me for advice, and I’ve got all these ideas to benefit the wider community (even with all the progressive political ones aside). Sometimes I feel that, for what I’m getting paid to work on just one organization’s digital strategy, I could be getting to apply myself to the benefit of even more of the community.

With all the talk about mergers, deduplication and resource sharing, it kind of seems like a waste to be limited to just one project. But with the right team, the right budget, and the right host organization…

My ultimate vision is for a Jewish innovation laboratory where a team of creatives and coders focuses their time banging out Web solutions that benefit the entire Jewish community, whether it’s online educational resources (like Jonah and the Pop-Up Jewish Dictionary), communal infrastructure (like a CMS for Jewish orgs or Kickstarter for Jewish innovation), Web publications (not necessarily the raucous ones on 31) or organizationally-specific solutions (like my current projects for Repair the World).

Create an in-house lab at a Jewish community organization like JFNA, or a Federation or foundation or Jewcy or MyJewishLearning. Put together a team of the best and brightest — designers, programmers, copywriters, project managers. Pay ‘em what they’re worth, instead of having them divide their time fighting for scraps. Try to stay out of the way, and let them throw whatever at the wall to see what sticks.

That, I believe, is the kind of risk innovation really takes.

Anyway, a man can dream, can’t he?

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Join us tomorrow as we kick off 28 Days, 28 Ideas, which continues the theme of this blog with 28 more ideas from 28 new Jewish voices.

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30. Progressive Israel Fellowship

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:31:00 -0500

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 progressive Israeli political leaders.

For younger Israelis fed-up with the status quo and broken by the intractability of the Israeli political system, there appears to be little hope for the future. Israeli youth are increasingly apathetic about national politics and have trouble envisioning for themselves a future in Israel. More and more Israelis each year are abstaining from military service, and many more are opting to leave Israel all together for the more seemingly normal political environments of Europe and the United States. Many see the country they thought they knew slipping away and feel their energies unwelcome.

For those not yet broken, who do choose to commit themselves to public service, support is virtually non-existent. Only if you wish to maintain the status quo, or push Israel further to the right, it seems, are there any opportunities to develop Israeli youth into tomorrow’s leaders. The end result is that today Israel has few notable progressive Jewish political leaders, and that number continues to dwindle. Israel’s progressive parties are shadows of their former selves. The Israeli opposition today is not even left, but a centrist party. The Israeli political left — the democratic and socially concerned balance to Israel’s now predominant right — is nearly extinct, save for the most radicalized elements, and religious fundamentalism, privatization and militarism have become the order of the day. “The only democracy in the Middle East” grows increasingly undemocratic. This trend imperils the survival of the state itself.

Israel needs investment in the next generation of progressive political leaders. We need to create programs to develop policy, strategy, and new talent. And we need to act quickly. We in the American Jewish community can help by working to create something like a progressive Shalem Center that offers fellowships to college-aged progressive Israeli youth which helps them develop their political and policy chops and which sets them forth on their career paths.

Israel needs progressive policy wonks, political strategists and community organizers. We need to help create new parliamentary candidates and political parties which understand 21st century organizing and who can speak thoughtfully and not acerbically to Israeli populist values. We need those who can stand steadfast — resilient and principled — in the face of attacks, corruption and obstruction. We need to develop individuals who are sensitive to the views of all of Israel’s voting blocs, who can flip the script and turn a new page in Israeli political discourse by not promoting the same incendiary rhetoric, failed policy initiatives, and unstrategic thinking of the past. And we need to start cranking these folks out now!

We must help seed Israel’s progressive future so that ten years down the road, we still have partners on the ground working the ensure that the Israel we love and support continues to exist. Otherwise Israel will face, not only the continued loss of its youth, but it will lose the support of its overseas allies as well.

29. Jews for Just & Compassionate Drug Policy

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:58:00 -0500

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 prevent illness.
As a people, we are committed to medicine and science, a tradition stretching from Maimonides to the Israeli biotech industry.
We have a rigorous intellectual tradition that demands accuracy, levelheadedness and reason.
We are obligated to create just courts and to actively pursue justice and as such we excel in the practice of law and public service.
We are committed to the struggle for civil and human rights for ourselves and others.
As an American faith community, we have a vested interest in protecting religious freedom and cognitive liberty — our inalienable human rights.
As supporters of Israel, we have a vested interest in cutting off the flow of funds to terrorist organizations.

So did you know:

“The United States leads the world in the number of people incarcerated in federal and state correctional facilities. There are currently more than 2 million people in American prisons or jails. Approximately one-quarter of those people held in U.S. prisons or jails have been convicted of a drug offense. The United States incarcerates more people for drug offenses than any other country. With an estimated 6.8 million Americans struggling with drug abuse or dependence, the growth of the prison population continues to be driven largely by incarceration for drug offenses.”

The U.S. spends approximately $40 billion taxpayer dollars each year prosecuting the drug war, and yet the popularity and availability of drugs has not at all been impacted. All the while the incarceration rate continues to grow and government contractors continue to profit.

Yet anyone with their head on straight, who is not a proponent of anti-drug hysteria, can see that:

Drug addiction is a social problem, not a criminal behavior. Drug addiction is an illness that requires treatment, not imprisonment. Prisons are where addicts learn to become hardened criminals. Though we cannot forcibly stop people from using drugs, we can help to reduce the harm they pose to themselves and others.
The vast majority of those behind bars for drug offenses are black, despite the fact that whites are five times more likely than blacks to use drugs. Discriminatory law enforcement has created a situation wherein black youth are being used as fodder to sustain a prison industrial complex that financially benefits law enforcement agencies and prison contractors. This is a grave civil rights injustice.
Regulation would eliminate the black market for illegal drugs, which funds criminal and terrorist activity in Israel and the world over and which necessitates international drug interdiction operations that are costly to taxpayers and which cause grave harm to already-suffering third world civilian populations.
Not all drugs are addictive nor personally destructive. In fact, many drugs that have been outlawed for their recreational potential have verifiable medical applications that are being withheld from those whom they can genuinely benefit. Medical marijuana is effective in treating the symptoms of AIDS, cancer, MS, arthritis and various other diseases. Psilocybin and LSD have proven to be effective treatments for migraine and cluster headaches. MDMA therapy is without question the single most effective treatment for PTSD and anxiety. All of this has been discovered in only the last decade, as the U.S. and Israeli governments have slowly and painfully begun to open up provincially to this kind of research. The list will only grow, and these treatments will only come to market, if we stop obstructing psychedelics research and allow our doctors to treat sick patients.
Consensual crimes are an offense to the notion of freedom, and cognitive liberty — that is, the right to experiment with your own consciousness — is an inalienable human right and the fundamental basis of religious freedom. The use of psychedelics by spiritual communities, religious denominations and individuals (under the observation of licensed practitioners) should be adamantly defended, as we would defend our right to engage in any Jewish religious ritual. So long as one takes precautions so as not to harm the person or property of a non-consenting other, he should be free to go as deep in or as far out as he wishes to go, “without anyone to oppress or disturb” him.
The war on drugs is an immense waste of taxpayer dollars — all the more so at a time when our government is planning to implement an across-the-board spending freeze. Ending the war on drugs and taxing and regulating the sale of marijuana would help tilt the balance sheet back in Americans’ favor. Marijuana should be regulated similarly to alcohol and tobacco, whereas it has been proven numerous times over to be far less dangerous than either of the two. The California state assembly, the first in the nation, recently voted to legalize marijuana and expects to generate at least $1 billion in tax revenues annually. Imagine how much they’ll save in law enforcement and incarceration costs on top of that.

So, where do we, the Jews, come in?

The Jewish community, through FEGS and other efforts, has helped to provide treatment programs for addicts around the country. These programs can benefit even more people with a coordinated legislative effort to promote a reduction in wasteful drug war spending and a further expansion of federal support for faith-based treatment programs.
Israelis and American Jews lead the world in the field of psychedelic medicine but are constantly obstructed in their research by bad drug policy. We must support and defend their research and the rights of patients to have access to all available methods of treatment. We need more legislators and attorneys working to repeal restrictions on psychedelic research and access to medical marijuana.
We must defend the rights and fight for the care of the sick and dying. There is a wealth of rabbinic knowledge that can be brought to bear on this issue, and it is encouraging to see that our community is beginning to make traction in this area, from the Reform movement to the Orthodox community. An informed Jewish take on caring for the sick can have a tremendous impact if, once a concretized platform, we can use it to engage the Christian community in ecumenical dialogue about the drug war. If we can get Rick Warren with us on this issue, we can start turning it around.
The leading drug policy reform organizations in America today are staffed, led and funded by Jews. Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, which is funded by George Soros, is the son of a Recon rabbi. David Borden of StopTheDrugWar.org is an affiliated progressive Conservative Jew. Rick Doblin, of the MAPS, is the grandson of one of Tel Aviv’s forefathers. In addition to being cofounded by two prominent Jewish academics — Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan — since 1970, NORML has had at least five Jewish executive directors. Many of these individuals specifically connect their work in drug policy reform to their Jewishly-imbued commitment to social justice (I have them on tape saying so). These individuals should be celebrated as social justice heroes in our community, just as we regard the likes of our great civil rights leaders, feminists, anti-genocide activists, and so on.
Jewish legislators, prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys have a wealth of knowledge and experience to bring to the table on this issue and could, together, help draft legal challenges to our more egregiously unjust drug laws. Constitutional attorneys can help protect and expand individual cognitive liberty and religious freedom. In some cases, via the ACLU for example, this is already happening. We should highlight and support the work of those leading the charge.

Jews for Just & Compassionate Drug Policy would:

Bring a Jewish social justice voice to bear on the drug war
Mobilize Jewish clergy, professionals, layleaders and communities towards Jewish action against the drug war
Honor and support the work of Jewish drug policy reform advocates with awards and grants
Aid in the coordination of drug policy reform efforts in and between Israel and the United States
Petition and lobby legislators for policy reform and in defense of the unjustly prosecuted
Engage faith communities in ecumenical dialogue
Convene Jewish legislators, attorneys and rabbis to discuss reform initiatives and to coordinate strategy

28. Jewish Non-Profit Employees Union

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:35:00 -0500

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 incentivizing reforms, there would nonetheless remain those who would shrug off their ethical responsibilities and jeopardize the well-being of their employees, communities and institutions. In these instances, we cannot merely count on these institutions to reform themselves, we must actively seek to reform them.

It is for this reason that I have long dreamt of creating a Jewish non-profit employees union. That is: a union for the employees of non-profit Jewish organizations, whether they be Jewish or non-Jewish, and whether it be a day school, synagogue, summer camp, JCC, Federation, advocacy organization, etc.

American Jews have a more than a century-old tradition of labor organizing, informed by a definitively pro-labor religious heritage, yet this has all but vanished from consciousness amidst our modern day affluence. Today, we are, by and large, no longer exploited factory workers. Through our labors we have ascended the class strata to become “Jewish professionals” whether in service or by trade. But in the process, we have lost touch with our past and reduced the issue of workers’ rights to the province of seemingly fringy Jewish social justice groups.

While I, for one, am fortunate enough to work for a model organization at which I marvel every day, many Jewish non-profit employees still suffer from traditional class inequities, and are all too often subject to the conscious or oblivious tyrannies of wealthy executives, donors and board members who, even in their best moments, can be tone deaf, blind, or even outright contemptuous towards workers’ concerns.

The employees of Jewish non-profits should not have to be idealistic to the point of self-detriment, sacrificing their livelihoods, their personal lives and their dignity in order to serve their communities. They should be granted the same respect, rights, protections and benefits as any other civil servant or for-profit worker. They should also have the ability to hold their employers accountable when those employers fail to reflect the values their very institutions exist to communicate.

There are thousands if not tens of thousands of Jewish communal employees across America. It is high time we organize and exercise our power. If the endeavor upon which we are embarked as Jewish communal servants is truly in the community’s interest, then we should not be instruments of others’ designs, but partners in creation. Unionize and demand staff representation on every board of directors, now!

27. Hechsher Tzedek for Jewish Non-Profits

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:21:00 -0500

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 evening, President Obama called upon this nation’s leadership to reflect upon the impact of their behavior on the nation’s psyche:

Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions — our corporations, our media, and, yes, our government — still reflect [our] values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people’s doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates to silly arguments, big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.

No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there. No wonder there’s so much disappointment.

I could say the same of our Jewish institutions. Every time an employee is paid less than half of what they’re worth, or a qualified woman is passed over for an executive position, or a foundation invests in a Ponzi scheme, or a school protects a child abuser, or a senior executive misappropriates funds, or a charity takes a significant donation from a crook, or it spends $1,000,000 on a gala dinner, or it fails to deliver services, Jewish professionals and Jewish community members become cynical, disappointed, disillusioned, and demoralized.

Jewish leaders so often bemoan the fact that we’re losing talent, respect and public interest but they never quite seem to accept the real reason why: It is because, as exemplars to the rest of the community, we have often failed to live up to the values that our we and our tradition profess.

Last year’s Agriprocessors scandal generated a great deal of introspection within the Jewish community, as we witnessed the downfall of a preeminent ultra-Orthodox family, renown in Chabad circles for their charitableness. As most American Jews experienced it, the Jewish archetype — which we connect to piety and righteousness — was thrust into the spotlight in connection with the biggest illegal immigrant labor raid in U.S. history. The working conditions were appalling, the ethical infractions overwhelming, questions loomed about the kashrut, and the non-Jewish community was tsk-tsking from the sidelines.

As a result of much debate and soul searching, a number of Jewish organizations came forward to propose a hechsher tzedek — an ethical standard for kosher food products, so as to prevent future incidents and to restore the public trust in kashrut. This standard, as proposed by the Conservative movement, the progressive Orthodox community and even the mainstream Orthodox, would, among other things, require kosher food producers to deal legally and respectfully with their employees.

As a long-time Jewish communal professional with quite literally hundreds of friends working in Jewish professional trades, all of whom love to bitch about their jobs, it occurs to me — and, as evidenced by the fact that this idea arose from a rather diverse group’s dialogue, I am most certainly not alone — that the Jewish non-profit sector could itself benefit from a similar ethical standard.

I would therefore like to propose a hechsher tzedek for Jewish community organizations.

Unfair and illegal labor practices; gender, sexual, racial and religious discrimination; sexual impropriety; wasteful spending, financial mismanagement and irresponsible investing; lack of transparency and oversight… These are just a few issues that could be addressed through the implementation of such an ethical standard.

Bring together a consortium to investigate Jewish and secular business ethics and to fashion a standard of conduct for our communal institutions. Organizations that fit the guidelines can apply to receive official certification and a seal to display on their Web sites, print collateral and front windows, so as to let the public know, it’s safe to put your trust and your dollars there.

Think of it like a Charity Navigator for institutional accountability.

I can only imagine what it might do to restore the damaged credibility of our values, leadership and institutions.

26. Universal Jewish Membership Rewards Card

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:56:00 -0500

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 donations, day school tuition, kosher food and so on, and weigh that total against the fact that the average Jewish household income is only $50,000/yr, and you won’t be surprised by the fact that most Jews tend not to affiliate Jewishly.

What might be a helpful step towards remedying this problem is incentivizing affiliation by providing universal access to all local Jewish institutions for the cost of membership to one. Join a synagogue, a JCC, donate to a Federation or send your kids to day school, and you should be able to gain access to, or at least get discounts on, other Jewish institutions in your area.

Let’s say I become a paying member of a local synagogue: For the cost of my annual dues, I should also receive a membership card that would entitle me to city-wide rewards: Free and discounted tickets to events and classes at any JCC or Y in the city, free entry to local Jewish museums, discounted rates on school and camp tuition, discounts at local Judaica shops, kosher restaurants and grocers, special offers on airfare to Israel…

It’s not a new idea: The JCC in Manhattan, for example, offers its members discounts to local retailers through its Neighborhood Partners program. And it’s a great incentive. But let’s think bigger, and cast our net wider.

Such a membership program could even be offered as a stand-alone, like Entertainment. For a low annual fee, subscribers could get a coupon book and a membership card for ongoing discounts at partnering organizations. Leveraging the cardholder community, you could offer big membership discounts, a la Groupon, where the Jewish Museum, for example, recently offered 63% discounts on memberships, pending 40 people would commit to purchasing them. Imagine if that were five or ten thousand.

By working together to create a truly beneficial rewards program, Jewish organizations locally and nationwide can help each other in increasing one another’s program attendance and memberships, while Jewish retailers can boost sales from new and repeat customers.

In this economy — and even before this economy — every little bit helps. A universal Jewish membership rewards card can go a long way in bridging the gap, giving struggling individuals and families greater opportunity to enjoy the benefits and appreciate the value of our communal institutions.

25. Survivors Narrative Project

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:26:00 -0500

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 Holocaust,” and my father, Philip, is the current Executive Director of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants. The Holocaust has thus, as you might imagine, always been a big part of my family’s identity and vocabulary. So much so, in fact, during high school my friends referred to my mom as Mrs. Holocaust.

No joke, I spent the first 20 years of my life living in a Holocaust library. My parents are, among other things, writers and editors and today they earn much of their living from editing and co-authoring Holocaust survivors’ memoirs. Their bookshelves, in practically every room of their house, are overstuffed with histories, theses, memoirs, novels — all about the Shoah. At some point, they had accumulated so many that they filled a wing at a local university just getting rid of the runoff.

For all these reasons and more, I am intimately familiar with not only the legacy of the Shoah, but all the unholygodawfulness of Shoah biz — the institutionalization of the Holocaust. And even though the thought of using a dime of Holocaust-related funding for anything but the survivors’ care makes me ill, and only because — due to life circumstances — I couldn’t possibly avoid having one good Holocaust education idea, here, inevitably, is my application for Shoah dollars.

As I was saying, my parents help survivors write and publish their memoirs — their testimonies to the horrors and miracles they witnessed during WWII. It is a noble and thankless task. Survivors’ stories need to be told. But, with rare exception, survivor memoirs are not bestsellers. Most survivors foolishly expect to find publishing contracts for their books, balking when faced with the reality and expense of self-publishing. So their manuscripts linger on shelves, unseen to anyone but a few academics and disinterested publishers. Yet there is such a wealth of information, offering such a expansive picture of events, that to leave these manuscripts languishing is a crime to our historical memory and the survivors’ legacy.

The Survivors Narrative Project (SNP) would offer a means to give our survivors’ stories their due, by creating a complete history of the Holocaust told from the perspective of its witnesses.

This mockup is a visual reference and not at all a final vision.

An interactive, multimedia Web site, SNP would let users specify a date and location and then browse through retellings of the days’ events pulled from the pages of survivors’ testimonies.

In addition to offering a robust boolean search interface, SNP’s primary navigational tool would be one which let users quickly jut about dates, locations and personalities.

Similar to MIT Labs’ Exhibit, but not nearly as ugly nor hard for the am haaretz to grasp, SNP’s navigator would be divided into three collapsable panels:

Date: Users would select a date or date-range on an interactive timeline covering the entire period from before to after the war, with major events highlighted for quick access.
Location: Users would set the location by clicking an area on an interactive map. Users can select a region of any size, from a single town to the entire globe. Historically significant locations would be marked for quick access.
Individual: Users would select from a gallery of survivors’ photographs to display testimonies specific to the selected date and location.

Content would shift on the fly as users made their selections, enabling effortless browsing through time and space.

Beneath the navigation, the selected testimony would show. Narratives would be pulled directly from survivors’ memoirs and harvested from various collections like those of Yad Vashem, YIVO and the USHMM. Using a custom XML encoding, authors can be tagged with biographical data, and books’ chapters, paragraphs and sentences could be marked for their date of occurrence, location and other data. (Users could even help tag incoming content, as new manuscripts are added to the database.)

So too, this could be done with the Shoah Visual History Foundation’s archives, which would make a fantastic addition to this platform. Video testimonies can be tagged for date and location info, connecting film segments to the timeline and map for quick reference. And with the help of technologies like those employed by Metavid, closed captioning and other metadata can be used to make spoken text searchable.

Users could choose to read or view only a segment at a time, or to delve further into an entire testimony, by viewing online, or by downloading ebooks, ordering print-on-demand copies or purchasing DVDs of video testimonies (thus providing additional incentive to archival partners). Users could also annotate and cross-reference testimonies, connecting dots between individuals’ stories and providing helpful insight and references. Social media tools will also enable users to tweet and share on Facebook segments of testimony they find compelling.

SNP would thereby provide a means for survivors to finally share their stories effectively, an ideal tool for students, educators and researchers to investigate the Shoah, and a business model of sorts for organizations sitting on the rights to manuscripts no one seemingly wants to buy.

24. Jewish Book of the Month Club

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:13:00 -0500

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 diverse array of thoughtful and provoking Jewish works who are dying to push their new releases, and a nation of well-read Jews out there, looking for good books.

Create an online Jewish bookseller that offers discounted titles on everything — Chabon, Aleichem, Wieseltier, Oren, Heschel, Sacks, Michaelson, Ruttenberg — books that are not too academic or religiously heavy-handed, that may or may not be ideologically charged, but which are thoroughly intelligent, well-written, enjoyable to read and, most importantly, topical and generating buzz.

Overcome the segregation of Orthodox, non-Orthodox, secular Jewish and non-Jewish booksellers by offering a truly pluralistic and inclusive catalog. Push out one highlighted selection each month, automatically charging members’ cards, but offer the ability to decline the monthly selection online. Offer the option of audio and ebook editions.

Publish original book reviews and author profiles, as well as podcasts and video of author interviews and book readings to help drive sales. Offer members real-world and online events with authors, as well as online moderated discussions and local meet-ups to foster community (and peoplehood, wink wink) among readers.

With the right taste and standard of quality, a Jewish Book of the Month Club could a highly profitable business, connecting Jewish readers and publishers at a time when publishing needs all the help it can get.

Once again, shockingly surprised it doesn’t exist.

23. ProgressiveJews.org: HuffPo for ProgJews

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:44:00 -0500

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 conservative, due to a lopsided sense of polypartisan representation, conservative opinions nonetheless seem to dominate the Jewish press and the policies of some leading Jewish organizations. And while there are several independent efforts contributing a progressive voice to the Jewish blogosphere, there is no single resource online today which brings together the best in progressive Jewish political opinion and reporting.

ProgressiveJews.org would be the Huffington Post of progressive Jewish political opinion, with reporting and editorials from the leading progressive Jewish voices speaking out today. The site would contain both original content and reprints from popular progressive Jewish sources, producing and aggregating the highest quality content each day, creating a much-needed counterbalance to the likes of the Conference of Presidents Daily Alert.

ProgJews would be loudly and unabashedly liberal and progressive, on both Israel and domestic issues, openly challenging the status quo of Jewish organizations and publications that seem to be progressive on everything except Israel policy. ProgJews would act as a community watchdog, highlighting positions taken by mainstream Jewish organizations and Jewish representatives in Washington and Israel, lauding those that are favorable and critiquing and condemning those that are unfavorable to the progressive Jewish agenda. ProgJews would also aim to actively link the interests of progressive groups that are focused exclusively on domestic issues or on Israel.

In addition to curated content, ProgJews would feature an open newswire, similar to Indymedia or Daily Kos diaries, inviting users to contribute to the ongoing digestion of the day’s pressing political concerns. ProgJews would also feature a resource library, highlighting local and national Jewish organizations that are working to advance progressive Jewish interests.

Finally and most notably, ProgJews would also contain an action center which would aggregate online actions from leading Jewish organizations — petitions, letter writing campaigns, and the like — inviting users to take action on those issues which resonate most with them, from throughout the Jewish community. (And if the universal Jewish CRM login ever comes to be, users will be able to just check-off each one the want to sign, and sign them all with one click.)

ProgJews has the potential to foster a more informed Jewish public, to build a greater sense of community among Jewish progressives, to facilitate further communal dialogue and to mobilize greater citizen action on issues of political import.

It is a resource that is long overdue and one that, I am pleased to say, is already in production and will, G-d willing, be launching soon.

22. Mazal Tov Cocktail: An Encyclopaedia of Jewish Radical Culture

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:49:00 -0500

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 my connection to our radical past, and feel myself to be a bearer of our great tradition, as opposed to a defiler.

Likewise, there are many other Jews around the world today who are politically progressive as a result of both their historical circumstances and Judaism’s innate messages of human compassion and rejection of the status quo. They too find inspiration in the Jewish past, and see themselves as carrying the torch, struggling today to make manifest the ideals and dreams of their predecessors. Yet so often, they are discouraged by mainstream academics and political and religious institutions — made to feel that they are somehow un-Jewish in their beliefs and actions — and so they become estranged from Judaism, Jewishness and the Jewish community.

Mazal Tov Cocktail (the name comes, with permission, from a long-demised ‘zine of the same name by Heeb founding publisher Jennifer Bleyer) is an attempt to further connect the dots and to make clear the direct line drawn from our radical past to our progressive present. An encyclopedia of Jewish radical culture, Mazal Tov Cocktail would study individuals, movements, events and concepts within Jewish history that are revolutionary or radical in nature — from Abraham’s iconolcasm through Anarchists Against the Wall — connecting our modern struggles and movements to our intellectual, political and mythical heritage.

Artists, writers, musicians, politicians, activists, rabbis, biblical figures, Torah concepts, rabbinic concepts, sectarian movements, political movements, sit-ins, strikes and uprisings — all would be encompassed and explored in detail, seeking out the central Jewish ideas that have motivated these individuals, movements and events.

Mazal Tov Cocktail would seek to demonstrate that our historical narrative is not singularly determined and that one can find their own story, place and empowerment in Jewish history. Mazal Tov Cocktail would be an outstretched hand to those Jews disenfranchised and alienated by reactionary anti-progressivism, inviting them not just into the fold, but to take hold of it. It therefore has the potential to reconnect disaffected Jews to their heritage and sense of peoplehood.

Mazal Tov Cocktail also invites the increasingly conservative Jewish mainstream to view their heritage through the prism of human progress, rather than through the provincial lens of Jewish self-interest. Its content would encourage Jews to see their ideas and struggles as parallels to the advancement of the human story, placing the story of Jewish redemption in the greater context of the redemption of the world.

Mazal Tov Cocktail would furthermore reach back towards our lost Hebrew and Yiddish socialist literature, delving into the archives of YIVO, the National Yiddish Book Center and the Zionist Archives, seeking out content that further elucidates and demonstrates this line from our past to present, providing translations and annotation that can breathe new life into texts that have disappeared from our consciousness.

Mazal Tov Cocktail has the potential to be the ultimate rejoinder to Podhoretz and his ilk, succinctly demonstrating once and for all that there’s far more to being a Jewish progressive than we’re given credit for.

21. Hymietown: The Jewish Gawker

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:05:00 -0500

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, I was instrumental in launching many other popular Jewish blogs including JSpot, JVoices, The Jew & The Carrot, Israelity, Canonist, and CampusJ to name a few. During my tenure at JTA, in addition to revamping the organization’s overall Web site, I co-created three new JTA blogs, including The Telegraph, The Fundermentalist and Capital J, each of which are now considered essential reading in Jewish professional circles. All of which is to say, that when it comes to Jews and blogging, I’m generally your go-to guy.

So, speaking in that capacity (even though I haven’t been much of a blogger for the last two years), I wish to identify a ginormous hole in the Jewish blogosphere, that is so painfully obvious and yet so easily filled, that I’m kind of embarrassed that I haven’t pulled it together yet.

Has anyone else noticed that, 10 years in, there is still not a single blog covering the NYC Jewish community in a thoughtful, entertaining and irreverent way? The Biggest Jewish community in America, the second biggest in the world, 20% Jewish population city-wide, and not a single blog worth reading.

Oh, we’ve got papers which publish their Web editions on a print schedule. We’ve got Jewish blogs which talk about New York happenings. And we have the NY Times, sort of. But, we have nothing that covers New York Jewry at the pace of New York and with the tone of New York Jewry.

And so, I give you Hymietown: The Jewish Gawker. (And I know what you’re thinking: Gawker is the Jewish Gawker. But gimme a break.)

Tell Jesse Jackson we takin’ it back.

Hymietown would cover local politics, transportation, education, real estate, media, finance, philanthropy, medicine, arts, sports, dining, dating, spiritual life, social life, and professional life, providing both original reporting and curated content from NY’s Jewish and non-Jewish newspapers, radio stations and television networks. The site’s focus would be on the New Yorker and the Jew, exploring the city and its people — their relationship, past and present.

Hymietown would aspire to the creativity of the Times and the snark of Gawker: to be inquisitive, prolific and over-the-top funny. The site would be informed secularly and religiously, knowing precisely the right buttons to push to steer the public interest and provoke discourse.

Hymietown would tell you where to get the cheapest kosher and kosher-style digs, what that Hebrew on the side of that building is from, where to daven if you’re looking for the least strollers, which Jews’ Night Out Christmas party will be the least embarrassing, which turd Shel Silver stepped in this time, which non-profit CFO got caught shtupping which hedge fund manager, which real estate mogul lost his shirt on high rise condos, which hasidic sect erupted in riots, which Jewish neighborhood is next to get screwed by MTA service cuts…Real Jews, real New York, real Jewish New York attitude. For 21st century Jews who want to find out today, not Thursday, and who want to chortle while doing so.

I’m shocked — shocked, I say — that it still doesn’t exist.

Seeking qualified contributors…

20. Jew It Yourself: The Jewish Catalog 2.0

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:40:00 -0500

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 purpose of Jew It Yourself (JIY) is to provide online resources that facilitate self-directed Jewish learning, practice and community-building to those who fall outside the purview of mainstream Jewish organizations. (Most of the projects on this Web site, are in fact, Jew It Yourself “products.”)

More than ever — particularly in light of the downsizing of the Jewish institutional world — Jewish individuals and communities need tools and resources to help them live Jewishly. JIY seeks to help address the growing educational needs of Jewish individuals and families who either live too far from primary Jewish population centers to find adequate schooling, cannot afford to provide their children with standardized Jewish education, or feel themselves all together alienated from traditional (and often denomination-centric) approaches to Jewish education. JIY will reach these individuals by marketing itself in places and publications where secular and unaffiliated Jews tend to congregate but which are not distinctly Jewish.

The project takes its cue from The Jewish Catalog, the well-known how-to guide for Jewish practice authored in 1965 by the leaders of the Havurah movement — the forerunner of today’s burgeoning independent minyan movement.

How do you bake your own hallah? How does the Jewish calendar work? Are there rules and procedures for death and burial? How do you plan your own wedding? Can you make your own tallit, tefillin, candles, mezuzot, shofar?

For anyone who has ever wondered about how to make wine, crochet a kippah, locate a Jewish film, start a Jewish library, bring the Messiah, where to study, and many more aspects of the Jewish experience, this is the book you’ve been waiting for.

The Jewish Catalog is an exciting collection of far-ranging topics that should aid any Jew—whether steeped in the tradition or just discovering Judaism—to become personally involved in aspects of Jewish ritual life, customs, cooking, crafts, and creation. What makes The Jewish Catalog different from any other Jewish reference book you have ever read is that in this book the emphasis is not only on knowledge or theory but on the practical side of things as well. The compilers of the catalog believe that Jewish life is a very physical experience, and the various sections of the book, besides providing important information and ideas, are designed to help you live and experience Jewish life in a creative and personal way. Frequently lighthearted, the material is presented with a love and honesty that make this book a joy to read.

JIY will reinnovate and modernize The Jewish Catalog’s model and its language for the 21st century, by employing social media technology and strategies, as well as adopting the down-to-earth “do it yourself” aesthetic popularized by publications and websites such as Readymade Magazine and Instructables.com. JIY will use audio, video, animation, blogs, user generated content, and other interactive media to offer universally-accessible online Jewish educational content that is user-friendly, authored in “outsider” language, devoid of religious heavy-handedness, and which encourages individual Jewish self-realization.

This entryway into Jewish engagement will foster greater connection between disaffiliated Jewish individuals, their Jewish heritage, and the global Jewish community. JIY also wishes to make an impact on the wider Jewish community by creating pioneering content that sets a new standard for communicating Jewish ideas, and by pioneering the use of technologies that enhance the experiences of Jewish individuals and communities.

What we hope not just to learn, but to conclusively demonstrate with this project is that there is an enormous hunger for relevant and engaging Jewish content among those who do not affiliate Jewishly in traditional ways, as well as among those who do not have access to traditional means of Jewish education; that innovative approaches to content and technology can do wonders to increase the value proposition of Jewish engagement; and that alternative approaches to Jewish education, such as JIY, can be practical, affordable and successful.

19. JStock: The Jewish Designer's Marketplace

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:53:23 -0500

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 single resource that gathers the best of these materials together into a single, efficient and affordable repository, nor which provides an open marketplace for creatives looking to hawk their creations to a Jewish market.

With thousands of Jewish organizations around the country churning out marketing materials day after day, hundreds more freelance designers working on projects for Jewish clients, and untold numbers of Jewish photographers, filmmakers, illustrators, typographers, musicians and Web designers looking to earn a living from their creativity, I’m quite certain that I am not the only one who sees the need for such a resource. So I came up with JStock: The Jewish Designer’s Marketplace.

JStock would offer free and commercial:

Stock images, video & vector illustrations of Jewish objects, symbols, rituals, individuals, institutions, current events, archival materials, etc.
Hebrew, Yiddish & Jewishly-inspired fonts for Mac and Windows
Commercial Jewish music for video and audio soundtracks
HTML, Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla templates for Jewishly-themed Web sites, including synagogues, community organizations, fundraisers, weddings, b’nai mitzvahs, etc.
Indesign, Quark, Illustrator, Word and Publisher templates for Jewish calendars, bentshers, haggadahs, invitations, etc.

By reaching out to Jewish publishers (like Davka), creative agencies (like Flash90) and archival institutions (like the Center for Jewish History), as well as offering a marketplace wherein independent creatives can sell their wares (similarly to iStockphoto), JStock could assemble a rich and diverse collection of materials that would be available for direct download. Users could immediately download free content for free, or purchase download credits to acquire commercial content. Creatives can directly upload their original creations and, if approved, immediately start earning profit from the sale of their contributions. JStock would thus save Jewish designers countless hours wasted hunting down quality resources, while offering today’s Jewish creatives an easy way to profit from their work.

18. JDocs: Jewish Documentary Film Portal

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:03:00 -0500

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 significant number of friends who are Jewish documentary filmmakers as well, and in speaking to several of them about issues of marketing, promotion and fundraising for their films, a number of common needs became evident to me:

Jewish filmmakers need a venue in which to highlight their films, so that they can be discovered both by the public and film curators/event programmers. They need a way to distribute their films, online and off, for private and public screenings. They need a place to raise funds for their films, both from the public and from the philanthropic community. And they need a way to energize the social marketing of their films, so that their fans can take the ball and run with it.

Jewish documentary is important. As a visual communications medium, documentary films have a capacity to communicate history, values and ideas with a power that few if any other mediums posses. The value of documentary film as an educational medium is therefore paramount. But little is presently being done to strengthen our connection to and use of this powerful medium.

A couple of months ago, the Foundation for Jewish Culture asked me to attend a meeting to conceive of technological solutions to address the common needs of Jewish documentary filmmakers. And they weren’t expecting it, but I’d already given the topic so much thought, that when I walked into the meeting, I simply laid the following mockup down on the table and the entire conversation took off from there.

JDocs would be an online platform for Jewish documentary filmmakers to showcase their films, distribute and finance their films, as well as a resource for movie lovers and theaters to discover new films.

The site would generally offer the following features:

Watch Online: Watch streaming versions of full-length documentaries online. Some films will be free, some will be a one-time online rental. For a monthly fee, gain unlimited access to all online rentals, a la Netflix.
Now Playing: Find and purchase tickets for Jewish documentary films playing in your area.
Browse Films: Browse an archive of all Jewish documentary films in JDocs’ database.
Support a Film: Make a financial contribution to a filmmaker seeking funds to complete their film project.
Join: Create a filmmaker profile and add your films to the JDocs database.
Shop: Order DVDs and/or licensing for private and public screenings of films.
Forum: An online forum for Jewish filmmakers to talk shop.
Search: Find a film by title, subject, keyword or filmmaker.

Each filmmaker would have a biographical profile showcasing their films, and each film would have its own film page that would contain:

Video: Clips, trailers, outtakes, interviews and/or full-length features.
News: A blog with news about the status of a work in progress or about recent film festival awards, etc.
Screenings: A calendar of all upcoming screenings of that particular film around the world.
Details/synopsis: Release date, location, runtime, etc.
Reviews: Press reviews linked to by filmmaker plus user generated reviews of the film. Users can also rate the film on a four star rating system.
Discussion guide: A resource for educators to facilitate discussions of the film’s content.
Watch Online, Buy DVD and Arrange a Screening: Allows users to “rent” a film online, purchase a DVD edition from the JDocs store, or arrange a public screening using either streaming video or a DVD.
Support this Film: Users can make a tax-deductible financial contribution to a filmmaker’s work-in-progress.
Social media components: Users can share a given film with their friends via email or the social networks of their choice.

JDocs itself would then market and promote Jewish documentary film overall and engage the public in site participation by: Highlighting its online rentals, showcasing films currently in theaters, holding special online screening events, and organizing fundraising competitions for matched grants. It could also partner with local and international Jewish film festivals and create special sections and online events to market and promote those film festivals and the films they’re screening.

JDocs would also serve the Jewish filmmaking community by organizing events for filmmakers to talk shop, share skills, and collaborate on projects; by creating a members rewards program to help Jewish filmmakers get discounts on video gear; and by providing updates about available grants and other opportunities for Jewish filmmakers.

The site would require significant investment to get off the ground, but once it existed, it would be a boon to the Jewish documentary scene, and help foster not only a greater public interest Jewish documentary, but a sense of community among Jewish filmmakers and sense of greater Jewish communal commitment to the genre of documentary filmmaking.

17. JCiv: Civilization for the Jews

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:38:00 -0500

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 PC game in particular that I really love, and that game is called Spore.

Spore takes you through the entire process of evolution, starting you off as an amoeba and working you up through the stages of land dweller, tribal chief, planetary ruler, and space traveller. What’s most fascinating, however, is that the nature of the game’s progression — the very behavior of your character — is entirely up to the decisions you make as the player. You can choose to be a carnivore or an herbivore, a warrior or a priest, a peaceful people or a conquering people. You have to build cities, agriculture, industry, armies. And you have to think strategically about the choices you make.

It’s similar in that way to another game, Sid Meier’s Civilization, which has been an immensely popular empire-building strategy game franchise for nearly two decades. In Civilization, you start off in the year 4000 BC and have to build a civilization from scratch to stand the test of time, working your way up from a pioneer to a space traveller. It’s truly a remarkable gaming experience and one that is not only educational, but thoroughly entertaining as well. That’s likely why the game has seen new versions released for 19 consecutive years and why it has been so often emulated by other game developers, including the creators of Spore. There’s now even a free, open source clone of the game called FreeCiv, which anyone can download and modify to their own liking.

You know what I find disappointing, though? Nearly 20 years of Sid Meier’s Civilization and various knock-offs, and no one has yet done a version covering Jewish history. It’s kind of shocking considering how essential our narrative’s role has been to Western civilization for the last 2000 years, and how rich of a gaming experience the various contexts in which we’ve struggled can provide.

So I’ve taken the time to think out my adaptation of Civilization for the Jews. Consider it a basic sketch of 14 levels of gameplay. It’s a very Zionistic interpretation of history, which I don’t necessarily subscribe to, but which lends itself to game narrative due to its simple focus on civilization primarily within the land of Israel, and tangentially to diaspora. My biases come through in the endgame, however.

If anyone wants to make a FreeCiv adaption for the Jews, your roadmap follows. I really just wrote it all out for the first time today, so it’s admittedly rough. I am not at all tied to the trivia angle, but a friend recommended it to make it work for students. It’s a framework to build on nonetheless.

1. Abraham Our Father aka Intro to Gameplay

Setting: Ur
Primary character: Abraham
Functions: Talk to character, preach, attack, lead
Objectives: Preach unity of God to various camps, then smash their idols to convert them into followers. Must convert three individuals, by correctly answering trivia questions, to a convert camp. Answers to trivia and game clues learned by speaking to game characters. Must convert three camps plus one bonus question, for a total of 10 questions, to proceed. Not every individual or every camp will be receptive to conversion — some will attack. When enough camps are converted, lead them out of Babylon.
Transition: The Ivri cross over into Canaan. Abraham receives revelation from God, promising land of Canaan, draws a knife to symbolize circumcision.

2. The Inheritance of Abraham

Setting: Canaan
Primary character: The Patriarch (Abraham/Isaac/Jacob)
Functions: Talk to character, build, dig, plant, reproduce, attack, preach, lead
Objectives: Build encampment to earn digging power. Dig wells to earn planting power. Plant crops to earn foodstuffs to reproduce. Reproduce to add more followers to build more encampments, wells and crops. Fend off enemy attacks on resources. Preach to convert three enemies from each camp to convert camp to “friend.” Of seven camps, convert three camps, convert or destroy remaining four camps. Wrestle and defeat angel by answering trivia questions to receive the name Israel and progress.
Transition: Famine strikes and Jews descend into Egypt, where they become enslaved. Moses rescued from Nile.

3. Exodus

Setting: Egypt
Primary character: Moses
Functions: Talk to God, talk to characters, attack/strike with staff, preach, enact plague, lead, split sea
Objectives: Attack and kill a slave master. Flee to desert when soldiers pursue. Discover burning bush. Talk to God at burning bush to receive power to preach. Return from desert to preach. Preach to different slave camps and smash camp idols depicting Egyptian gods to gain followers. Must convert 10 camps. Receive plague power for each camp converted. Go to palace and enact plagues in proper sequence. Once all plagues are enacted, receive sea splitting power. Lead Hebrews out of Egypt, answer trivia questions to split Sea of Reeds to progress.
Transition: Israelites cross through Sea of Reeds, Egyptians drown.

4. Redemption

Setting: The Wilderness
Primary character: Moses
Functions: Talk to God, talk to characters, attack/strike with staff.
Objectives: Build encampment. Find and strike the correct rock to receive water. Assign workers to collect manna. Take warriors to seek Mt. Sinai to defend against marauders. Find and climb Mt. Sinai, then talk to God to receive Torah. Video interlude re: Torah. Wander desert and smash rocks to reveal materials for building the mishkan (tabernacle). When all parts are found, return to the encampment, ask players questions for help finding Bezalel and Oholiab, then answer their trivia questions to proceed with the building of the mishkan. Once the mishkan is finished, progress.
Transition: A beam of white light descends from the heavens into the Holy of Holies and the mishkan glows. Over the horizon, an invisibleish gate unlocks the land of Israel.

5. Monarchy

Setting: Ancient Israel
Primary character: King-to-be, King of Israel (Saul/David/Solomon rolled in one)
Functions: Talk to characters, attack, diplomacy/pay tribute, dig/mine, add residential zones, agricultural zones, commercial zones, and military outposts.
Objectives: Build encampments, dig wells, add farms near wells and markets near trade routes. Earn revenue from markets to earn mining ability. Dig iron and limestone mines. Engage in diplomacy and war with neighboring tribes (Canaanites, Philistines) to fend off attacks. Earn iron to build military outposts to defend against attacks on resources. Build seven outposts to be crowned King. Defeat the Philistines in battle by answering trivia questions to progress.
Transition: Solomon’s Temple is built. Ark of the Covenant is brought into the Temple.

6. Kingdom of Judah

Setting: Kingdom of Judah
Primary character: King Hezekiah
Functions: Talk to characters, attack, diplomacy/pay tribute, make sacrifice, dig/mine, add residential zones, agricultural zones, commercial zones, and military outposts.
Objectives: Create enough residential and agricultural zones to keep the people from rebelling and attacking commercial zones. Earn money from commerce to dig iron mines. Earn iron to build military outposts to defend against Assyrian attack. Sacrifice cows to prevent acts of God, such as residential, agricultural or commercial zones being smote by lightning. Engage in diplomacy to make friends with neighbors by answering trivia questions. After reaching goal of converting three tribes and creating seven military outposts, progress.
Transition: Assyrians conquer and Temple is destroyed, sending Jews into exile.

7. Babylonian captivity

Setting: Babylon
Primary character: A Wealthy and Learned Jew
Functions: Talk to characters, diplomacy/pay tribute/pay tax, buy/sell market stalls, buy/sell homes, pray.
Objectives: Buy a market stall to earn revenue. Use revenue to buy more market stalls and homes. Pay tax collector and pray to avoid antisemitic mob attacks on market stalls and homes. Earn enough money to find and pay tribute to King Cyrus, who will ask trivia questions, and progress.
Transition: Return from captivity, rebuilding of Temple.

8. Second Temple Period

Setting: Kingdom of Herod c. 70 CE
Primary character: King Herod
Functions: Talk to characters, diplomacy/pay tribute, make sacrifice, preach, add residential zones, agricultural zones, commercial zones, industrial zones (mines), military outposts, and yeshivas.
Objectives: Create enough residential and agricultural zones to keep the people from rebelling and attacking commercial and industrial zones. Earn money from commerce to build industrial zones. Earn minerals from industrial zones to build military outposts to defend against Assyrian attack. Sacrifice cows to prevent acts of God, such as residential, agricultural or commercial zones being smote by lightning. Engage in diplomacy/pay tribute to keep enemies at bay. Greeks will successfully invade. Destroy idols and gymnasiums and build yeshivas to counteract Hellenization. Preach to convert Hellenized Jews. Attack and destroy Caesar statue outside Temple. Temple will be ransacked. Seek out oil. Answer trivia questions to light the menorah and progress.
Transition: Story of the Roman conquest, destruction of the Second Temple.

9. Bar Kochba’s Revolt

Setting: Israel, c. 132 CE
Primary character: Shimon Bar Kochba
Functions: Talk to characters, attack, dig wells, add residential zones, agricultural zones, commercial zones, industrial zones (mines), military outposts, fortress walls.
Objectives: Create enough residential and agricultural zones to keep the people from rebelling and attacking commercial and industrial zones. Earn money from commerce to build industrial zones. Earn minerals from industrial zones to build military outposts and fortress walls to defend against Romans. Complete fortress by answering trivia questions to progress.
Transition: Romans overpower, send Jews into exile. Map shows dispersal of Jews across the globe.

10. Persecution

Setting: Background and enemies shift as level proceeds. France c. 1070., Egypt c. 1171, England c. 1290, Germany c. 1380, Spain c. 1492, Baghdad c. 1828 and Russia c. 1881.
Primary character: A Wealthy and Learned Jew
Functions: Talk to characters, diplomacy/pay tax, buy/sell market stalls, buy/sell homes, build synagogues, build yeshivas (academies).
Objectives: Buy a market stall to earn revenue. Use revenue to buy more market stalls, homes and yeshivas. Some property owners will not permit sale of their property. Build enough yeshivas to begin authoring Rabbinic texts. Authoring texts unlock clues to creating Golems. Pay tax collector to avoid antisemitic mob attacks by Crusaders, Inquisitors, Tsaritsts, etc., on market stalls, homes and yeshivas. Create Golems by answering trivia questions and use them to defend against attacks. Build synagogues to prevent acts of God. Survive seven pogroms and earn enough money to proceed.
Transition: Jews flee Tsarist Russia for Palestine.

11. First Aliyah

Setting: Palestine, c. 1883
Primary character: A halutz
Functions: Talk to characters, attack, diplomacy/pay tribute, buy land, collect lumber, lay pipe, add residential and agricultural zones.
Objectives: Find a seller and buy land in an arable location near water. Drain swamps. Gather wood to build. Add residential and agricultural zones to provide characters food and shelter. Create irrigation systems to feed farms. Engage in diplomacy and war with neighbors who attack residences and steal from farms. Convert “friends” by answering trivia questions. Convert three neighboring tribes to friends. Survive long enough to build a lasting settlement and progress.
Transition: World War I leads to World War II, horrors of the Holocaust.

12. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Setting: Warsaw Ghetto, 1943
Primary character: Jewish resistance fighter
Functions: Talk to characters, attack, pray, add illegal businesses, hospitals, schools, and soup kitchens.
Objectives: Create smuggling and illegal manufacturing rings. Use profits to build underground hospitals, schools, and soup kitchens to keep fighters alive, as well as to buy guns and Molotov cocktails. Pray to prevent Nazis from discovering illegal activity. Attacking Nazis before deportation will result in destruction of resources. Once deportations begin, attack Nazis. Successfully answer trivia questions to progress.
Transition: Nazis crush uprising. Survivor escapes to Palestine, joins Irgun, attacks British. UN declaration. Israel declares Independence.

13. War of Independence

Setting: Israel, 1948-1979
Primary character: Prime Minister of Israel
Functions: Talk to characters, attack, diplomacy, add residential zones, agricultural zones, commercial zones, industrial zones, roads, water systems, power stations, hospitals, schools, synagogues, and military outposts.
Objectives: Build up infrastructure, housing, agriculture, schools and hospitals to grow population and keep citizens from striking against commerce and industry. Build up industry and commerce to raise money. Purchase military bases to defend against enemy armies. Use diplomacy to make peace with neighbors (Egypt & Jordan). Build roads between disparate communities and defend roads with military outposts. Build synagogues to prevent acts of God. Defeat remaining enemy armies by answering trivia to progress.
Transition: A brief history of Israel’s military, diplomatic and economic history.

14. War of Occupation

Setting: Israel, Post-‘67
Primary character: Prime Minister of Israel
Functions: Talk to characters, attack, diplomacy, add and bulldoze residential zones, agricultural zones, commercial zones, industrial zones, roads, water systems, power stations, hospitals, schools, yeshivas, synagogues, military outposts, and security walls.
Objectives: Build up and maintain civil infrastructure to prevent illness, hunger, homelessness and public rebellion. Create new jobs, farms and housing, while dealing with decreasing amount of territory. Earn money from industry and commerce to spend on military outposts, civil infrastructure and security walls. Choose whether or not to expand into the West Bank. Some West Bank areas are safe to build in, but building in areas too close to Palestinian villages or tapping Palestinian water supplies will result in spill-over from “natural growth” and incite attacks in the form of bus bombings and suicide bombings against resources. Build military outposts to defend resources. Choose to build a security wall around Palestinian territories. Learn that building a wall will harm economic growth due to international boycotts but will reduce the frequency of enemy attacks. Attack or engage in diplomacy with hostile villages. Discover that attacks lead to counterattacks and diplomacy leads to peace in most but not all cases. Deal with the wildcard of Jewish extremists building in Palestinian territory and inciting further attacks by bulldozing their settlements. Simultaneously, deal with haredim attacking industry and commerce by building yeshivas. Convert or destroy all Palestinian villages for the game to be over. If you convert them all to “friends” through diplomacy, the Third Temple will descend from the heavens. If you kill them all, the state of Israel will be boycotted and bombed out of existence.

16. Social Auctions & Simcha Registry

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:13:00 -0500

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 seller getting the money from the sale, save for the shipping costs, it’s donated to a charity of the seller’s choice (from a selection verified by Guidestar). A similar concept exists with collective.give, wherein a group of photographers are auctioning off their works for charity.

Mash that up with another relevant concept (which could even be #17, but they work so well together): Create a tzedakah (charity) registry for simchas (celebrations). Instead of registering at “Bloomies” or whathaveyou, birthday boys and girls, brides and grooms to be, and all other revelers expecting gifts can direct their friends to a selection of charities they’d rather have their friends donate to. It’s kinda like Causes, but neither dependent on Facebook nor limited to one cause. You can list as many as you like so your friends and family can take their pick of the ones you’d like them to support. You could even give users a variety of templates for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, etc., so that they can email a super-personalized fundraising page to their friends and family.

That’s all I’ve got on that at the moment… I only thought it up a month ago. Parts of it I was thinking up while writing. We’ll see if it goes somewhere.

This marks the half-way point in this here blogging adventure, which has already been read by an astonishing 1,236 “absolute unique visitors.” Tomorrow, another one I’ll be thinking up as I’m writing. But then back to tachles…