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Contact Spring 2006 3.Qxd CONTACT SPRING 2006/NISAN 5766 VOLUME 8 NUMBER 3 THE JOURNAL OF JEWISH LIFE NETWORK/STEINHARDT FOUNDATION TheThe Internet:Internet: PathwaysPathways andand PossibilitiesPossibilities contact SPRING 2006/NISAN 5766 VOLUME 8 NUMBER 3 The Internet: Pathways Eli Valley Editor and Possibilities Erica Coleman he most revolutionary innovation of the Internet is arguably its demo- Copy Editor cratization of information and of communities. Not since the advent of the Janet Mann Administration Gutenberg press have the barriers between people and data been so widely Yakov Wisniewski T traversed. As China’s recent dealings with Google and Yahoo reveal, it is this Design Director open access to information that terrifies repressive regimes. The democratic impulse JEWISH LIFE NETWORK suffuses not only the receivers of Internet content, but the creators as well. In STEINHARDT FOUNDATION December, the science journal Nature found that the online encyclopedia Wikipedia Michael H. Steinhardt – maintained by 45,000 volunteers, both professional and lay people, across the Chairman globe – was almost as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica in its science articles. Rabbi Irving Greenberg President How has the democratization been a boon to Jews, and how can the Internet be Rabbi David Gedzelman better harnessed to increase involvement in Jewish life? Executive Director Jonathan J. Greenberg z”l For one thing, lack of formal Jewish education need not be the barrier it once Founding Director was to Jewish involvement. With widespread access to information from each of CONTACT is produced and distributed by Jewish Life Network/ the denominations as well as from pluralistic and interdenominational websites, Steinhardt Foundation, 6 East 39th Street, 10th floor, New York, NY 10016. the potential for Jewish learning and literacy is practically unprecedented. In All issues of Contact are available for addition, the grass roots nature of the Internet has empowered people the download at www.jewishlife.org/journal.html community has typically ignored: the young, the unaffiliated and the non-wealthy. Individual subscriptions are free of charge and are provided as a service to the community. This is particularly true for the younger generation, a cohort the community To subscribe, please send your name and professes to be concerned about but has by and large ignored when it comes to mailing address to [email protected]. Phone: (212) 279-2288 involvement and ideas. Indeed, the relatively level playing field of the Internet Fax: (212) 279-1155 has subverted the traditional paradigm of top-down discourse. At the same time, Email: [email protected] Website: www.jewishlife.org the Internet has facilitated the creation of vibrant communities that rival "real For media inquiries about Jewish Life Network/ world" communities and that themselves often spill over into the non-virtual Steinhardt Foundation, please contact Richard Dukas at [email protected]. world. As the articles in this issue of CONTACT illustrate, the Internet has become Copyright © 2006 by one of the most kinetic landscapes of contemporary Jewish life. Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation. In many respects, the Internet is too dynamic to be harnessed and controlled by the organized Jewish community. And this is not at all a bad thing. If the strength of the Internet is its populism and democratic impulse, the community should Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation is dedicated to strengthening and transforming provide educational resources and work to facilitate further grass roots American Jewish Life to ensure a flourishing, flourishing without trying to co-opt the medium or to dictate a top-down sustainable community in a fully integrated free society. We seek to revitalize Jewish identity approach. In so doing, the community might learn new ways of inspiring people through educational, religious and cultural ini- tiatives that are designed to reach out to all to participate in Jewish life. Jews, with an emphasis on those who are on the margins of Jewish life. Photographs in this issue appear courtesy of Photos.com. Eli Valley 2 CONTACT http://www.jDate.com Jumping http://www.jewishlife.org INTO THE http://www.Jewschool.com Web http://www.MyJewishLearning.com http://www.myUrbanKvetch.com http://www.nextbook.org http://www.matzat.org.il http://www.Jewlicious.com by MICHAEL KRESS >> started out right out of college as ple of all faiths, and MyJewishLearning, an old school print journalist, and a pluralistic site for Jewish information like so many others, I looked at this and education. At this point, I can’t LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD, I new medium, the World Wide Web imagine life — professionally or person- as we so quaintly called it, with a mix- ally — without the Web. THE JEWISH COMMUNITY HAS ture of fear and excitement. I remember My story is hardly unique. Like the the odd feeling of publishing my first rest of the world, the Jewish community JUMPED INTO THE WEB WITH article on the Web as a freelance writer. has jumped into the Web with that same It felt incomplete, insubstantial — and mixture of fear and fascination that I THAT SAME MIXTURE OF FEAR yet, it probably found considerably more did. But there is still a long way to go readers than anything I’d written before, for Jewish institutions and leaders to AND FASCINATION THAT I DID. and that audience was certainly more realize the full potential that this geographically far-flung than any I’d had medium offers. BUT THERE IS STILL A LONG before. Perhaps the first and most important WAY TO GO FOR JEWISH Today, barely more than half a lesson I’ve learned is that the Internet decade after those early days of trepida- truly is a new medium. This may seem a INSTITUTIONS AND LEADERS TO tion, I’ve worked at two very different simplistic and obvious observation, but websites — Beliefnet, a website for peo- there are profound ramifications to the REALIZE THE FULL POTENTIAL truth that the Web is not merely a place where books and magazines appear on a Michael Kress served as the founding Editor-in- THAT THIS MEDIUM OFFERS. Chief of MyJewishLearning.com. He now edits the monitor and humans communicate via arts and entertainment coverage of Beliefnet.com. typing instead of talking. To make the SPRING 2006 3 best use of the internet, we need to and cultures. This is happening on some entirely inaccurate, with no way understand how the culture and behav- Beliefnet, MyJewishLearning and any for the average person to decipher which ior of Web users is unique to the number of other sites, such as Children is which. medium. This includes questions of how of Abraham, where Jewish and Muslim American religion has always run on we digest information, how and where teens from around the globe — includ- a model of free-market capitalism, one we look for information and whom we ing places like Pakistan, South Africa, faith competing with another, thriving trust, the length of our attention spans, and Israel — interact with each other. by responding to market needs. Though and many other such issues. So how do People who would never attend in per- it may not be the traditional Jewish we take best advantage of this new son an interfaith or interdenominational model, we’re all part of the system medium? I’d like to focus on just two dialogue are on Internet message boards whether we like it or not. Rather than broad areas: Communication and con- asking questions, answering others’ approaching this ever-more decentral- nection, and information and authority. queries and debating any topic imagina- ized world with fear, Judaism would be ble. Discussions are not organized or lin- better served by enthusiastically embrac- Communication and connection: At both ear, and they can seem bewildering for ing it. Let’s make sure we’re equal play- websites I’ve worked at, discussion the inexperienced user to read through, ers in this marketplace by getting our boards play key texts, our leaders’ roles in the voices (contempo- organizations’ rary and historical), missions, allow- our community ing readers, members, our opin- wherever they Let’s make sure we’re equal players in this marketplace by getting ions, even our may be, to post internal disputes questions and our texts, our leaders’ voices (contemporary and historical), our out there for people opinions and community members, our opinions, even our internal disputes out to find, respond to interact with and embrace or each other about there for people to find, respond to and embrace or reject. reject. As the Inter- the profound net, inevitably, and the mun- moves toward more dane alike. of a multimedia Though only a model — audio, small percentage video — and away of readers will ever take advantage of the but — especially in moments when par- from its reliance on text, let’s embrace boards — Internet discussion is not for ticipants ask about someone who hasn’t that too, and translate our tradition into everyone, and this has proven true been around for a while or take a this new format just as we transitioned across the Web — those who do partici- moment to discuss personal news in from a fully oral tradition to one that pate can be changed forever by the expe- their lives — there’s no doubt that real mixes the oral and the textual. rience. One of the most rewarding connections are happening. Finally, though the old hierarchies experiences I’ve had as a Web editor was and sources of authority may be forever “listening in” on some of Beliefnet’s Jew- Information and authority: Even the most changed, it’s important to remember that ish-themed discussions and seeing how egalitarian-minded of Jewish communi- they’re not dead. Despite the everyone’s- people from different worlds engage ties is accustomed on some level to hier- a-rabbi environment on the Web, I’ve with each other in substantive dialogue.
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