23. ProgressiveJews.org: HuffPo for ProgJews
Continuing on the theme of being unabashedly progressive, as with Mazal Tov Cocktail, my next idea is for an online portal for progressive Jewish political news, opinion and action. It’s called ProgressiveJews.org.
Jews are overwhelmingly progressive. It’s high time we stop debating this fact, accept it, and move on. Yet, while only a minority of Jews are decidedly politically 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.
