How Social Networking Impacts the Jewish Community

Blogging, Facebook and Twitter have increased the chatter.

by David Pessah
Baltimore Jewish Times 
http://bit.ly/3rtDA5
August 28, 2009

Want to talk to a nice Jewish girl who shares your love for Sukkot
and skydiving? Looking for someone to point you toward a place 
for an informal Shabbat dinner? Miles from a synagogue and 
want to chat with a rabbi in real-time? Need help interpreting that 
mesmerizing Torah passage - right now?

Here’s a suggestion: walk over to your computer, log on to 
twitter.com , and type “Jewish” in the search field. Chances are 
you’ll find a conversation going on about everything you’re 
looking for - and more.

Do the same with Facebook, or YouTube, or any of the many other 
forms of social media that pop up seemingly every other day. 
Access - often instant access - to a wide range of Jewish life has 
never been more abundant.

What, you thought Twitter is all about Ashton giving daily accounts 
of eating Krispy Kremes for breakfast? That Facebook is only about 
posting those rowdy college party pics? Sure, there’s plenty of 
self-indulgence going on, but don’t let the buzz fool you. 
Social media like microblogging site Twitter is changing the world - 
in a hurry - and that can only be good news for Jews.

Why?

Because social media is making it easier to be Jewish. For a 
people who have fretted over a loss of identity for generation 
after generation - especially in America - innovations like Twitter 
and Facebook are nothing less than, dare we say, a godsend.

“Much of the extra-organizational innovation you see in the 
Jewish world has been made possible by the Internet,” says 
David Abitbol, founder of the Web’s most popular Jewish blog, 
Jewlicious.com, where posts by Jewish bloggers quickly become 
vibrant conversations connecting Jews all around the world. 
“The Internet has made it easier for Jews to find each other. 
Jewlicious itself would not have existed before the Internet.”

Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, spiritual leader of Beth Tfiloh 
Congregation, couldn’t agree more. “There is no question,” 
Rabbi Wohlberg says, “that with new technology there’s never 
been an easier time in history to be Jewish.”

How is social media making it easier to be Jewish?

First and foremost, social media has turned the Web from an 
information storage locker into a two-way conversation; and 
it’s a conversation that knows no physical boundaries. 
Mr. Abitbol himself is based in Jerusalem, while some of 
his Jewlicious colleagues blog from Los Angeles, New York 
and Canada. You no longer have to live in a Jewish 
neighborhood to find a life in an active, thriving Jewish 
community. There are thousands on the Web, with more 
being added every day.

It’s also a fast and easy way for Jewish organizations to 
get the word out, whether it’s Beth Tfiloh tweeting about 
its Shavuot All-Night Challenge, political operatives like 
Aaron Keyak of the National Jewish Democratic Council 
lobbying government leaders, or a host of fund-raisers who 
have discovered they can raise money more effectively 
- with less overhead - by using the tools of social media.

“As Thomas Friedman would say, social media has flattened 
the world,” says David Weinberg, a social media consultant in 
the Washington suburb of Silver Spring. “That extends to 
Judaism. Before, if you wanted to learn more about Judaism, 
you could talk to the people around you, go to the library and 
take out books or go to the organizations near you. Now, 
you can talk to people, libraries and organizations all over 
the world. You can connect one-on-one and have discussions 
about everything from the Torah to kosher food in real-time.

“It’s a game-changer.”

The idea of social networks and social media has been around 
for decades. Early online communities popped up in 1985, 
but didn’t hit critical mass until Friendster and MySpace gained 
traction post-Y2K. These two social sites were the first to 
enable users to have conversations with each other. They also 
provided a quick and easy way to pass large amounts of 
information - stories, music, videos - around the Internet.

Their idea spread rapidly, helped by ever-improving technology. 
A recent study by Nielsen showed that in February of 2009 
social networking sites eclipsed e-mail in global reach. 
Yes, e-mail might soon be outdated. There’s been a 1,908 
percent increase in the use of video sites like YouTube, 
which allows users to post, view and comment on short videos, 
in the past six years.

The micoblogging service Twitter, where users send “tweets” 
of 140 characters, is now a daily mention on late night TV 
and a must for every print, Internet and television reporter 
hoping to stay current and in touch with their audience. 
It’s the freshest content on the Internet, with “tweeple” 
posting by the minute.

But despite using just 140 characters, Twitter also gives you 
access to volumes of material. Just put the link to that New York 
Times or Jerusalem Post story in the message field with a 
headline - the more clever the better. That’s what Rabbi Moshe 
Goldberger does at @GemsofTorah, where he tweets daily 
and answers questions about the Torah. Beth Tfiloh tweets 
links to Rabbi Wohlberg’s popular sermons. Israeli comedian 
Benji Lovitt embeds links to videos, including the one where 
he’s trying to get a date on Israel’s Valentine’s Day.

Facebook emerged in 2004 and now has more than 250 million 
active users worldwide, including a wide range of Jewish groups. 
Don’t know where to start? Try one of 1,575 Jewish and Israel 
Facebook Group and Fan Pages listed at 
jr.co.il/hotsites/facebook.htm .

Or stay at home and check out the Facebook page for IMPACT 
(new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8452604078), the Associated: 
Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore’s volunteer and 
leadership program for Jewish adults (ages 22-45). You’ll find 
a message board, where a new medical student from Chicago 
posts about his difficulties in connecting with Jews in Baltimore. 
IMPACT’s group page lists upcoming events (Another 
IMPACT Happy Hour @ Shucker’s of Fells Point), and its 
discussion board has posts for the “$400,000 in Special Grants 
for Jewish Education” and the Big Brother program.

Want to see the group you’re joining? Check out the 300-plus 
photos of the 308 young Jews, all tagged with names, posted 
from IMPACT events like “IMPACT Casino Night” and “IMPACT 
Summer Happy Hours.” It’s one of the ways the virtual experience 
leads to one in the real world.

“IMPACT is a great way for young Jews in business to network 
with each other,” says Jason Schuster, a member of the 
Facebook group and co-founder/president of Baltimore-based 
Budget & Lifestyle Web site ChangeUpMag.com. “Their events 
are a fun way to get offline and interact with others in the 
Jewish community.”

Rabbi Wohlberg has long known that his sermons are popular. 
It’s one of the reasons people join Beth Tfiloh. So he wasn’t 
surprised when director of communication Joan Feldman 
suggested they post the sermons on the Beth Tfiloh Web site. 
But he was surprised by the response.

“I was totally blown away,” he says. “Now I write a sermon 
and I get responses to them from all over the world. Of course, 
not all of them are good responses, but that’s part of the 
bargain. To be able to reach so many people is amazing.”

Beth Tfiloh was an early adapter to technology, putting up a 
Web site for the temple and its school in the mid-’90s. 
Ms. Feldman added a Facebook page last summer and the 
staff started twittering this past fall. “Like everyone else, we’re 
still learning what Twitter can really do,” Ms. Feldman says.

One thing Twitter will soon do is make it easier to access 
Rabbi Wohlberg’s reading habits. A voracious reader, Rabbi 
Wohlberg rises early each day and scours the Web for 
newspapers, journals, magazines - home and abroad - 
searching for articles that interest him and are relevant to 
his congregation. This fall, Rabbi Wohlberg will be tweeting out 
his reading list. “It’s ‘What the Rabbi is Reading,’” says 
Ms. Feldman. “We think people will enjoy it.”

What could be easier than that?

As you’d expect, it is the younger generation leading the way, 
with much of the new ideas coming from New York City, 
Washington, D.C, Los Angeles and Israel, long a hotbed 
for new technology. In the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s 
recent rankings of the “50 Most Influential Jewish Individuals 
on Twitter,” 13 are from Israel (Abitbol @jewlicious is 
ranked second) and another 13 are from New York.

Some of the more interesting include:

Yitz Jordan (aka Y-Love), the black Orthodox Jewish rapper 
from Brooklyn who has 1,841 followers at @ylove 
(twitter.com/ylove). Ranked No. 4, his raps on Jewish life 
are all over YouTube.

Dani Klein (14th) has 1,612 Twitter followers at @YeahThatsKosher 
(twitter.com/yeahthatskosher) and bills himself as a kosher travel 
expert and “social media marketing maven.” (Be careful, 
Orioles fans. Mr. Klein will sprinkle Yankees game updates 
along with recommendations for the best kosher restaurants 
the world over.)

William Daroff, the United Jewish Communities’ vice president 
for public policy, is No. 5 on the JTA list and one of the 
most active Twitter users on the Internet. Want to ask a 
world leader a question? Tweet @Daroff, and he will pose the 
question and tweet back the answer.

The JTA also ranked the most influential Jewish organizations 
on Twitter. First is the Holocaust Memorial Museum in 
Washington, which has 5,697 followers @HolocaustMuseum. 
On Aug. 1, this tweet topped its page: “This day in 1936, 
Berlin Olympics opens & makes history for Nazi propaganda, 
boycott debate, & Jesse Owens’ victories.” Included is a 
link to its online exhibition of those Olympics.

Second on the list is the Israel Consulate, which has the 
largest Twitter footprint with more than 7,000 followers. 
Its twitter page - twitter.com/israelconsulate - has become 
a live feed from inside the consulate in New York City. 
It’s a place for users to ask questions and offer their 
ideas and opinions. “Instead of just listening to government, 
you are getting information one-on-one,” says Mr. Weinberg. 
“It changes the whole relationship and dynamic.”

For many, social media is the means to an end, with the 
online experience translating to opportunities to meet, 
talk and organize in the real world. That’s the goal of 
Moishe House, which credits its use of social media for 
its success in seeding mini-Jewish community centers 
around the world.

“By the end of the summer, we’ll have 28 houses in nine 
countries,” says co-founder and executive director 
David Cygielman, who three years ago started offering 
rent subsidies to young Jewish roommates to use their 
house as neighborhood centers for Jewish programs, 
from Shabbat dinners to Purim parties. Part of the 
agreement was for the roommates to post recaps 
and pictures of their events on the Moishe House blog 
site, as well as to start one of their own.

“We were trying to enhance Jewish life for people in 
their 20s,” Mr. Cygielman says. “The idea of social media 
is for it to be organic. For most of our residents, social media 
is already a part of their lives. Now they incorporate it into 
the Jewish part of their lives as well.”

There’s a Moishe House in major cities like Boston, and 
Chicago, small towns like Silver Spring, Md., and Great Neck, 
N.Y., and foreign capitals like Beijing and Buenos Aires. 
Almost all have Facebook pages, most of them twitter, 
all of them stay connected with each other and their 
communities.

That’s how young Jews living in New Orleans got the scoop 
on Scott Perlo, rabbi-in-residence for the Professional 
Leadership Project. Mr. Perlo’s non-profit organization finds 
and mentors 20- and 30-somethings to lead the Jewish 
community in the future. He posted a Facebook Event Page 
for a learning at Moishe House’s New Orleans Chapter, 
booked the gig, and by the time he arrived at MoisheNola 
house, resident Gill Benedek had loaded the page with 
a bio and articles about Mr. Perlo and PLP.

“Setting up Facebook event pages,” says Mr. Perlo, who travels 
the country giving these talks, “has literally revolutionized my life.”

Fund-raisers were early adapters of social media and now have 
a huge presence on Facebook, Twitter and other social media 
platforms. A recent study by the University of Massachusetts 
of the 200 largest charitable organizations in the United States 
showed non-profits far ahead of academic institutions and 
corporations in familiarity and uses of social media. The study 
said 89 percent of charitable organizations used some form 
of social media, with 45 percent saying it was vital to fund-raising.

“It’s the one place you can truly see results and it costs less,” 
says Mr. Weinberg, who points to sites like CharityBid.com, 
which holds online auctions for charity without the expense 
of renting out a building. “Instead of mailing out newsletters 
asking for money, you can do it in an e-mail. You save 
all that postage, you can track people, click through, 
you can put a donate button to make it easier to donate, 
you can send out an e-card.

“There are a lot of interesting and innovative tools for fund-raising.”

Says MoisheNola’s Mr. Benedek, who receives most of the 
money for the house programs through charitable donations, 
“You can show donors your Facebook page, your blog, 
and they can easily see how strong your message and 
following is,” he says. “And that helps a lot.” Putting a link 
to the donor’s Web site on your page doesn’t hurt, either.

All of which has become important in the post-Madoff world, 
where foundations have less money and the importance of 
the small donor has never been greater. “The entire Jewish 
communal structure has been based on relatively large gifts 
from wealthy donors,” says Mr. Abitbol. “They are going to 
have to adopt a model whereby micro gifts from a broader 
constituent base become more important.”

Just how important social media has become was driven home 
this past June when thousands of Iranians took to the streets 
to protest the rigged presidential election. Not unexpectedly, 
the leaders of Iran tried to end the protests by shutting down 
lines of communication. One line they could not shut down 
was Twitter, which Iranians were using over mobile phones 
to organize inside Iran and to get the word out to the rest of 
the world.

As fate would have it, Twitter had scheduled to shut down 
its system for routine maintenance as the protests were rising. 
That promoted an e-mail from 27-year-old State Department 
official Jared Cohen to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey 
requesting that he delay the maintenance and keep 
Iranians twittering.

“This was a call to say, ‘It appears Twitter is playing an 
important role at a crucial time in Iran,’” P.J. Crowley, 
assistant secretary of state for public affairs, told The 
New York Times. “Could you keep it going?”

Social media helping to change the state of affairs in Iran?

Now, that’s something that would make it easier to be a Jew.
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David Pessah is a freelance writer based in New York and 
a past contributor to the Jewish Times