Uncategorized
On one foot: Digital innovator and ‘Tech Shabbat’ pioneer Tiffany Shlain’s lessons from 3 years living online
(JTA) – Next month will mark three years since the Covid outbreak was officially declared a pandemic, which is 30 in Zoom years. For those lucky enough to be spared the worst of the pandemic, it nevertheless changed how they worked, played and socialized. Very few businesses — especially in the nonprofit sector that includes synagogues and other Jewish institutions — didn’t move at least part of their operations online.
“We were living in a world that changed overnight,” Tiffany Shlain, the artist, activist and Emmy-nominated filmmaker told me recently. “On the more technical side, we were forced to live on our screens in a way that made us realize how much better the real thing is. However, this move to online spaces did expand what Jewish learning and organizations we can tap into.”
I spoke to Shlain ahead of the Jewish Digital Summit, which begins next Tuesday. It’s a three-day, fully virtual conference run by 70 Faces Media, the parent company of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the New York Jewish Week and other sites. (Go here to register and for more information.) Shlain will be among the industry leaders helping individuals and organizations working in Jewish spaces to boost their digital expertise.
A pioneer in both realms, Shlain is the founder of The Webby Awards for excellence on the internet. She is also the author of the 2019 bestseller, “24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection,” which calls for a 24-hour “Tech Shabbat” for people glued to their screens
“During Covid, it was a lifesaver,” she said, referring to her family’s experience taking breaks from technology at their home in Northern California. “At a time when it felt like all the days were the same, blurring together, we got a hard stop every week, and a chance to spend time with each other, off screens, in nature, doing things we loved. When we got back online afterward, the internet felt fresh (and we did too). This is still what keeps me balanced in today’s 24/7 world.”
For the times people are plugged in, and want to be better creators and consumers of digital content, I asked Shlain to share her recommendations for various sites, projects and organizations that are getting it right. Who’s succeeded in keeping people connected, or reimagining what ritual and community look like now?
“Now that we are in this new phase of the pandemic, we need to reconsider what works best online and what’s better in person,” she said.
Here are her recommendations for the hybrid future:
The culture site and online community calls itself “Jewish, feminist, and full of chutzpah” and is part of 70 Faces Media.
“If you want to see how to ‘do’ Instagram, check out HeyAlma. It’s always witty, insightful, funny, and ironic — it’s my favorite Jewish Instagram handle. My daughter Odessa, who’s in college, and I are constantly sending each other their posts. I love their spot-on tone. It feels like we’re all in on the same joke, which is exactly what it feels like when you meet another Jew.”
Comedy writer David Adam Javerbaum ran the satiric Twitter account, which had 6.2 million followers before shutting down last November.
“Twitter used to be my preferred social media, although now I am on Instagram much more. One of my favorite Twitter handles of all time was TheTweetOfGod. Once Elon Musk started destroying Twitter, TheTweetOfGod sadly left, but there’s still a record there of all his posts. I highly recommend checking it out for his pure brilliance at taking a concept and using the medium in all its holy glory. The creator (ha!) ran with this concept of God tweeting in so many brilliant directions, even down to the one person he follows. It’s a great example of taking a new format and using all its different constraints for maximum entertainment and engagement.”
“No one gets between me and my community in my newsletter,” says Tiffany Shlain, an artist and activist based in Northern California. (Courtesy)
An arts and culture non-profit that helps foster experiential Jewish projects and programs, including podcasts, film, multimedia, art projects and holiday events.
“I am a firm believer that arts move society in a way that creates important changes, which is what Reboot is all about. Reboot is a thriving, provocative hotbed of creativity. I love Reboot’s ambitious rethinking of Jewish rituals, their podcasts and newsletter, and now their Reboot Studios, which funds new Jewish media content. I was part of the first cohort when it was very much an experiment and I have collaborated on many projects with people in their network. It’s also been great to see it grow into this amazing community of artists and culture leaders. Covid activated this network both internally and for great public experiences in a whole new way that continues today.”
A national nonprofit that empowers people 21-39 to host Shabbat meals and build community.
“I love the way OneTable brings young Jews together to organize and facilitate Shabbat experiences.They have a great Mad Lib-like questionnaire to help users figure out how they want to experience Shabbat. They also offer DIY tools for hosting and attending Shabbat dinners. I highly recommend exploring their site. We’ve worked together on a couple of films about the value of Shabbat you can see while you’re there. Rethinking Shabbat for the 21st century has been a big focus of my Jewish work, and I love the way OneTable scales this online. We are working on a cool four-week online program for people to try screen-free Shabbats in 2023. Stay tuned.”
Shlain’s own newsletter offers a highly curated combination of her own projects, arts events and “things I think you’ll find interesting.”
“I’ve been writing a monthly newsletter called ‘Breakfast @ Tiffany’s’ for over 25 years. Each month, I share both the project that I’m working on and a selection of books, films, podcasts, art exhibits, events and articles to inform and inspire, make you laugh and think. It always features a lot of Jewish work. I love sharing my perspective on what’s going on in the world through my lens as a Jew, mother, wife and human on this planet. It’s also my laboratory as I am both sharing what I think is best online and in the real world. So many organizations focus primarily on social media posts but as we repeatedly see, the social media company can change the algorithm and what we see with a switch of a business plan or CEO. No one gets between me and my community in my newsletter. It’s a straight connection, and I love the call-and-response feedback I get from readers who have been with me a long time and new ones. It’s a way to ensure you can communicate with your audience with no one else in control of who sees what.”
The conversational chatbot uses artificial intelligence to create everything from poems and cover letters to film scripts and term papers.
Chat GPT is basically a digital golem. People may have read about it but everyone should try it to get an experience of its capabilities. Could this be the ultimate Jewish online experience — where it’s all about knowing how to ask questions and decipher and wrestle with the truth?
—
The post On one foot: Digital innovator and ‘Tech Shabbat’ pioneer Tiffany Shlain’s lessons from 3 years living online appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Netanyahu drags Mamdani into his reelection campaign as face of antisemitism
For nearly two years, Zohran Mamdani has made Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a central political target. Now Netanyahu is making Mamdani part of his own reelection campaign.
The 50-second video released Wednesday on Netanyahu’s political social media channels builds on comments the Israeli leader made on Fox News this week, portraying Mamdani as the face of a worldwide surge of antisemitism directed at Israel. It intersperses footage of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and antisemitic incidents with recent clips of Mamdani condemning Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war after the mayor backed off a vow to have the Israeli prime minister arrested during an upcoming visit to New York. It also features Mamdani’s wife, artist Rama Duwaji, who liked social media posts that supported Palestinians immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. (Mamdani said his wife is a private citizen and does not work in his administration.)
The clip ends: “No one will stop me from fighting for the truth of Israel.”
The video comes as Netanyahu faces one of the toughest reelection campaigns of his political career, trailing his rivals ahead of Israel’s Oct. 27 election, which could determine not only his political future, but also his legacy and potentially his freedom as he faces a corruption trial.
The fight with Mamdani has become politically useful for Netanyahu. His main rivals — former Israel Defense Forces chief Gadi Eisenkot and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett — are seen as more moderate leaders who could rebuild strained ties with Democrats and win back support for Israel among Americans.
Joel Rubin, a Democratic commentator and foreign policy expert, said in an interview that turning Mamdani into a symbol of today’s Democratic Party gives Netanyahu a way to challenge one of his rivals’ central arguments that they are better positioned to course-correct the U.S. political shift against Israel. “For Netanyahu, it’s very important to try to portray the Democrats as Mamdani and make the argument that only he can stand up to that,” Rubin said.
Mamdani has positioned himself as a prominent progressive critic of Israel amid the war in Gaza, a position that helped propel his rise and which has become increasingly part of national Democratic Party politics.
Mamdani’s high-profile confrontation with Netanyahu escalated when he announced a review of whether he had the legal power to arrest the Israeli prime minister when he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September. Experts on Israeli politics warned of an unintended consequence: would allowing Netanyahu to cast himself once again as Israel’s defender against international efforts to isolate the Jewish state.
“Many Israelis are sick of him and hope to vote him out,” Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro wrote on X on Saturday. “The only possible outcome of a fruitless attempt to arrest him in NYC would be to give him a political boost at home. That would be an own goal.”
Some political strategists argue that Mamdani and his allies have little reason to mind if Netanyahu remains in power. “I bet they’re rooting for Bibi, in a perverse way,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder and executive vice president of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, in an interview with the Forward discussing how Israel is reshaping Democratic politics.
While still serving as a New York state Assembly member, Mamdani zeroed in on the Israeli prime minister as an enemy, leading chants of “Netanyahu, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” during a protest in Oct. 2023.
Throughout his mayoral campaign last year, Mamdani repeatedly injected Netanyahu into New York politics., Mamdani first pledged to arrest Netanyahu shortly after he launched his campaign. According to a report, members of Mamdani’s inner circle were pushing for him to make this arrest declaration. After his election, already knowing the city lacked the authority to arrest Netanyahu, Mamdani proceeded with the review. When it concluded he did not have the power to arrest Netanyahu, Mamdani used a mayoral address to declare him a war criminal and then encouraged New Yorkers to protest him on his UN visit. Critics say the episode was a calculated political move aimed at energizing the pro-Palestinian and progressive base that helped elect him.
“There is a core principle amongst the left in American politics that having someone to organize against is crucial to growing numbers and persuasion, and for Mamdani, having the foil of Netanyahu is an incredibly valuable tool for motivating support,” said Rubin, who led Jewish outreach for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.
Whether that principle translates into votes for Netanyahu’s coalition in Israel’s Oct. 27 election remains to be seen. At the moment, Mamdani and Netanyahu have become unlikely political assets for each other, each giving the other a powerful opponent to campaign against.
The post Netanyahu drags Mamdani into his reelection campaign as face of antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
As Conservative rabbis, we’re rethinking our communities’ policies toward interfaith families
(JTA) — As Conservative/Masorti rabbis, we see firsthand the joy of couples building a life together in the Jewish community, and the pain of those who feel shut out because one of them is not Jewish.
We think of the community member, though not Jewish, who developed a profound love for davening (prayer) and Torah study, and has supported his children’s and grandchildren’s Jewish education and observance of mitzvot. We think of another community member who faithfully drove her four children to Hebrew school for years and, after her youngest child’s bat mitzvah, chose to convert to Judaism herself.
It is time for our halacha, or Jewish law, to address issues facing intermarried couples and families robustly.
The two of us had the honor of joining colleagues in co-authoring a teshuvah — a rabbinic response to questions of Jewish law — that does just that. The Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has approved a teshuvah that seeks to honor these couples and families and their commitment to Jewish life in our congregations and communities.
Since we are part of a movement that balances a commitment to halacha with the realities of modern life, our work is grounded in traditional Jewish texts, laws and principles while also reflecting the core belief that welcoming others and extending hospitality are essential Jewish values.
Based on halacha and Jewish tradition, the teshuvah affirms the longstanding standard of Conservative/Masorti rabbis that clergy may officiate only at weddings where both partners are Jewish. It emphasizes that while a wedding is a significant moment that often singularly drives these conversations, there are many other important life-cycle moments that rabbis can offer as occasions for Jewish celebration and reaffirmations of commitment to mitzvot.
Through this teshuvah, we formalize a public mishebeirakh (blessing) before or after the wedding day for a couple committed to building an exclusively Jewish home, as well as a hanukkat habayit ceremony to dedicate their home.
We welcome non-Jewish parents on the bimah during their children’s b’nei mitzvah and offer “mazal tov” and other basic gestures of inclusion to intermarried couples, both of which were once considered unacceptable. Our goal in doing so is to inspire the couple and family to grow in Jewish living.
We affirm that synagogues may not hire intermarried individuals as clergy but may hire intermarried individuals for other roles, and that rabbis may officiate at funerals for non-Jewish family members and support a Jewish mourning process when a non-Jewish loved one dies.
It’s been about 40 years since the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which sets halachic policy for our movement internationally, broadly addressed questions around intermarried couples and families. We have learned over time that those intermarried couples who choose to embrace Jewish life are integral to the fabric of Conservative/Masorti communities.
We invite these couples to engage meaningfully in Jewish practice at home and in community, and, if they are having children, to raise them as Jews. Sometimes they may even choose to convert to Judaism at some point.
We do so because, as rabbis, we enjoy the privilege of being invited into people’s lives, and our role is both pastoral and educational. As people figure out their own identities and relationships, our role is to help them integrate Jewish tradition. As couples turn toward each other and seek to integrate Judaism into their lives, we are here to help them chart a course and to bring Torah into the conversation and observance of mitzvot into their lives.
We aim to inspire the couple to grow in Jewish living, observing mitzvot, studying Torah and searching for God in daily life. To do so, we must create gateways so everyone can find a place to learn and find joy and inspiration in our traditions, within the boundaries of halachic standards and principles.
Many of the practices in the teshuvah are already in place in some communities. Some offer solutions that speak most directly to realities in North America, and we call on local rabbis to interpret them in light of the circumstances in their local communities.
In the days of the Mishnah and the Talmud, when faced with new and challenging circumstances, our rabbis found creative and often beautiful solutions to embody the Torah as they understood it. As we follow in their footsteps, we use the wisdom we have inherited to both uphold and transform those values and honor the halachic principles that are central to our rabbinates and communities.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.
The post As Conservative rabbis, we’re rethinking our communities’ policies toward interfaith families appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
I was a reluctant Yiddishist. Here’s what converted me.
I couldn’t understand my peers’ embrace of Yiddish culture. Now I’m fascinated –– by the world evoked in Yiddish music and literature, and the leaders of its revival. My conversion began at Yidstock: a Festival of new Yiddish Music.
The post I was a reluctant Yiddishist. Here’s what converted me. appeared first on The Forward.
