RJ Blog

Earlier today, this article, “Facebook and Religion Don’t Mix,” crossed my desk, telling me that “Americans seem to not mix their social networking and religious activities.” In spite of what it says, much of my own personal Facebook use focuses on the joys of being Jewish— something many of my Facebook friends and I share with each other on a regular basis. A few examples and anecdotes, I think, illustrate this point best.

by Rabbi Evan Moffic Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had a big week. He took his $100 billion company public and got married. As a full-time rabbi and part-time Facebook user, I’m more interested in the latter event. Mark is Jewish. His wife is not. Was Judaism a part of his wedding? Was a rabbi there? I hope so. Many in the Jewish community see interfaith marriage as a grave threat. The media has already picked up articles decrying Zuckerberg’s decision. I see it differently, and that’s not only because my wife works at Interfaithfamily.com. Interfaith couples deserve full and unremitting support by the [...]

Did you know that when you breathe you are connecting to God? Or you could be if you were aware of what you were doing. Really. As part of our experimental Jewish Spiritual Journey Facebook Group, one participant asked me, “Does the word SHEMA have something to do with our breath?” I love the question. Here’s how I answered him: Shema absolutely has to do with the breathe because it twice invokes the name we call God, the four letter name Yud Hey Vav Hey which we often pronounce as Adonai. Adonai is just a euphemism for Yud Hey Vav [...]

by Tyler Benjamin From mid-May to mid-June, good fortune and hard work granted me three weeks in South Africa on my school’s tab. I am a third year John V. Lombardi Scholar at the University of Florida and one of the perks of the four-year merit scholarship is travels and studies abroad each summer. This time around we were with Dr. Todd Leedy, associate director and lecturer in the Center for African studies at UF. We spent two weeks at the University of Pretoria studying history and political science and one week doing the tourist thing in Cape Town. I [...]

by Jonathan Lam, Sean Thibault, Scott Hertz, and Jill PeltzmanURJ web team members Several of us on the URJ web team joined a few thousand other like-minded geeks in Washington, DC recently to attend NTC, the Nonprofit Technology Conference held by the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN). For three days, we immersed ourselves in learning about the myriad of ways that technology can be used for doing good. We were inspired by the conference itself, but an added benefit was spending an intensive amount of time with each other away from the office, networking, talking and thinking about what we do, [...]

by Brett Lubarsky(Originally published in Brett’s Blog and NFTY Convention Live!) Today was the traditional “catch-up on all the sleep I missed” day upon returning home from an amazing and reJEWvinating five days in Dallas for NFTY Convention and Youth Workers Conference. Here are just a few of the thoughts that have been on my mind: The NFTY and URJ Staff who helped make everything happen this week deserve to be commended for successfully incorporating some incredible technology into the mainstream programming for participants and staff alike. From text-based surveys to Visual T’filah, cell phones were used as tools to enhance programming and [...]

by Natalie MillerURJ Congregational Technology Specialist The Union is currently accepting submissions for The URJ Techies, a social media and technology contest set up to recognize member congregations that are successfully utilizing and embracing social networks and technology. It will also inspire others to seek innovative ways to enrich their communities by engaging members online. Social networking and technology are extremely important tools to increase awareness about the work congregations do within a community. These tools can help leaders connect with members outside congregation walls and can create an online community that can supplement and enrich the offline community, offering [...]

by Rabbi Paul KipnesOriginally posted on Or Am I? This weekend, though consumed with the celebration of life – a wedding, two B’nai Mitzvah, the bris of a baby – my heart was breaking as I tried to comprehend the deadly harassment that led to the death of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi. His roommate taped a private sexual encounter, publicized it on Twitter and put the video up on the internet. Humiliated and bullied, Tyler jumped off a bridge to his death. I am horrified and embarrassed that such acts continue to happen. It is enough that our young [...]

by Mark PelavinAssociate Director, RAC(Originally posted on RACblog) Here’s an interesting idea. 31 of them actually. Daniel Sieradski, who might best be thought as a Jewish communal techo-provacteur (is that OK Daniel?), has a fascinating project going on this month. Over at 31 Days, 31 Ideas he is posting a new idea for the Jewish community every day for the month of January. In his explanation of the project, he notes that What I hope to achieve in doing so is to attract collaborators, executors, funders and general community support for these ideas so that wherever interest lies, we, collectively, [...]

by JanetheWriter(Also published on JanetheWriter Writes) Rather than bore you with details about food and beverage fiascos at the Union’s recent Biennial convention in Toronto, let me tell you about the other side — the hugs, the smiles, the reconnects and the new friends who previously existed only on Facebook and in cyberspace. A few in particular come to mind: Early on, I met Rachel Turry Roth, managing director of the American Conference of Cantors in Chicago. We’d had numerous email and Facebook exchanges in recent months, but hadn’t ever met face-to-face. That happened on Sunday (or was it Monday?) [...]

Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, who blogs at Ima on (and off) the Bima, was a presenter today at the URJ Biennial learning session “Intro to Social Media: Facebook and Flickrand Twitter, Oh My.” This post is reprinted with permission. I’m in the Toronto airport waiting for the flight that will carry me home to Chicago. I’ve been, for the last two days, a participant in the Union for Reform Judaism’s Biennial convention. Every other year, Reform Jews get together to celebrate Jewish life, to learn from each other and share music, worship, and companionship. It’s a really wonderrful experience, with some [...]

By JanetheWriter Very early this morning, I posted this update on Facebook:  “JanetheWriter is welcoming a new Jew today…and very honored to be part of the process.”To which a friend in Vermont commented:  “Oh wow!  How very cool.”A while later, I met Rosita Goldstein–fresh from the mikveh and her questioning by the beit din–and indeed it was “very cool.”  Together we (her husband, four children, another witness and I) walked with her as she took the final steps on her journey to Judaism.

“There is a new container full of old wine and an old container in which there is not even new wine.” -Pirkei Avot 4: 20 New technologies are changing the world of Reform Jewish education, and as Rabbi Scott Sperling puts it, our challenge is to fill the “new container with old wine.” In the current volume of Torah at the Center Sperling and others cite examples of this brave new world: A weekly d’var Torah video group on Facebook where teens discuss the weekly Torah portion Online study groups for students in Sderot who can’t get to class because [...]

by Marge EisemanI sat at the pre-Purim pizza dinner this week schmoozing with people who have known me my whole life.  One of them was my 1st grade Sunday School teacher. It’s pretty easy to keep these connections, since we’ve all belonged to Congregation Sinai in Milwaukee for these past 50 years. I know their kids and grandkids, and that night I introduced them to one of my 20-year old sons. As it turns out, I’m Facebook friends with various members of their families. One of them asked me “What is Facebook? Isn’t e-mail good enough?” And I had to [...]