Rabbi Jason Miller

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Tuesday, May 06, 2008

PodCasting Torah

I love reading articles about the intersection of technology and religion, specifically Judaism. My colleague Rabbi Eli Garfinkel, with whom I worked at Camp Ramah Wisconsin in 1997, was featured in a USA Today article last month about the use of podcasts in religious groups.
Rabbi Eli Garfinkel, spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Somerset, N.J., a Conservative Jewish congregation, says he draws listeners from as far away as Italy, Argentina and Israel on his podcast, RabbiPod.

"I've been working on teaching the Torah in an accessible manner for a long time, and when the podcast technology was invented, it just seemed like a natural," he says.
The article explains that Podcasting is an inexpensive way for pastors and rabbis to greatly expand their audience beyond the walls of their own place of worship.
Israel Anderson, a software designer in Denver who operates a free site called God's iPod, screens all podcasts submitted to him and weeds out most. Part of what's driving the popularity of religious podcasts is dissatisfaction with organized religion, Anderson says. "If you're in a home church or go primarily for fellowship but your church isn't particularly good at teaching, a podcast is a good way to hear from a wide variety of people."

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Sunday, February 10, 2008

eCamp Israel

I recently learned about a new program that merges three areas I am passionate about --Jewish camping, Israel, and technology. Israel has always embraced high technology and modern communication. Part of what has made the almost sixty-year-old nation's economy flourish in the past two decades has been the success of its hi-tech sector. Now a new summer camping initiative is making the hi-tech experience available to Jewish youth who are interested in spending a summer in Israel and also interested in technology.

eCamp Israel is a technology summer camp based in Israel and open to American Jewish youth. As a member of the rabbinic cabinet of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's Project Reconnect, I was asked to look into the feasibility of including eCamp Israel as one of United Synagogue Youth's summer options in Israel. USY sends hundreds of teens to Israel each summer, and this program would allow some of those teens to specialize in a hi-tech track while in Israel.

I am very impressed with this new program. eCamp's mission is to "help young people realize their highest potential, discover their talents, and reach for their dreams". Their cutting-edge e-workshops will allow each individual camper to express their creativity, and the youth participants will work on their own projects in a collaborative environment (open-space computer lab).

eCamp, located in a residential educational institution near Caesarea, will not be a "computer camp" where kids sit in front of a computer all day. Rather, the camp will encourage the campers to go outdoors to do the normal summer camp activities like sports, swimming, and nature exploration. The camp will motivate campers to create a better world through the Jewish value of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) with each camper receiving a certificate for 5 hours of community service per session.

eCampers will meet with entrepreneurs including the founder of ICQ, now the originator behind the AOL Instant Messenger, visit leading Israeli research centers such as Intel, Microsoft, Google, Motorola, and train in the Israeli Air Force’s flight simulator. Participants will have experience theoretical developments by visiting leading academic centers such as the Technion and Weizmann Institute. Shai Agassi, a hero in Israel’s technology world and the founder of Project Better Place, will be eCamp’s Chief Scientist. When I spoke with Nir Kouris, co-CEO of ecamp and an Israeli entrepreneur, he explained that "As one of the global centers of technological innovation, it is time Israel gives back some of our know-how and share it with children from around the world."

The idea of an International Technology Summer Camp in Israel is brilliant. Jewish youth already flock to Israel in droves each summer and many of them have to put their technology interests on hold during that time. So, while most Jewish youth won't be able to use Instant Messenger while they travel in Israel this summer, the campers at eCamp Israel will be introduced to the hi-tech gurus who developed the infrastructure to run Instant Messenger. This program will open the gates for Jewish youth to the #1 success story of Israel – Technology Innovation.

eCamp is just one more piece of great news in the world of Jewish camping. Recently, the Jim Joseph Foundation and Foundation for Jewish Camping announced a $8.4 million partnership grant to create a Specialty Camping Incubator. The Incubator will create four Jewish specialty camps based on skills such as athletics, computers, and arts according to the successful model already established for Jewish camping.

It is truly remarkable to see the innovations taking place in the field of Jewish camping. It makes me want to be a kid again!

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Saturday, February 17, 2007

Judaism and the Internet: What I’ve been saying all along

Yes, technology is increasingly more important in Judaism. Ten years ago when I wrote my senior thesis in college on "The Globalization of Judaism" focusing on how new technology has affected the global Jewish community, I predicted that in the future congregations would communicate with their membership via e-mail and that Jews would choose their spiritual communities by shopping on the Web.

That time is certainly here. Like many rabbis, I send out a weekly newsletter via e-mail to my membership. With over 400 subscribers to our Constant Contact subscription service, the list is growing and it gives me an opportunity to share my thoughts, words of Torah, and programming updates with our congregants.

Daniel With the launch today of ShulShopper.com by jewschool.com blog creator Daniel "Mobius" Sieradski (in photo), Jews throughout the world will be able to shop for the minyan/shul/community that best fits their needs. I've already registered my congregation, Agudas Achim, in the ShulShopper.com database.

Sue Fishkoff touched on the many benefits of shuls turning to new technology and communication in her JTA article yesterday. It was nice to read about the usual suspects – my colleague Sharon Brous's Ikar minyan in LA and the archetypal Kehillat Hadar in NYC co-founded by Elie Kaunfer – but I was especially pleased to see that the Seattle-based Kavana was included even though its founder and my classmate Rachel Nussbaum was not interviewed.

Here are some selections from Sue's article, the full text of which is available on the JTA website.

New congregations see 'Net results in communication and cost savings
By Sue Fishkoff

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — When Ikar, a 3-year-old congregation in Los Angeles, wants to make an announcement to the 1,500 people on its mailing list, it doesn't send a letter. It sends an e-mail.

"We've never sent out a piece of hard mail," says Joshua Avedon, who is in charge of technology for the young, unaffiliated community that describes itself as "traditional yet progressive."

That's not all they use the Internet for.

"We get people interested in Ikar who don't live here, who follow us" via the community's Web site and then show up if they move to Los Angeles, Avedon says. "We have donors in New York and Jerusalem who have never been here."

Keeping people virtually abreast of the group's activities is "a way of creating a global constituency," Avedon says.

For dozens of new congregations and minyans, or prayer communities, like Ikar, the Internet is not just a faster, more convenient communication tool. It's a central organizing mechanism and community-building tool, filling the roles performed in more traditional synagogues by administrative staff, newsletters, membership committees, religious school, even rabbis.

The expected Feb. 15 launch of ShulShopper.com, an interactive tool that will allow people to find and rate local synagogues, aims to take the global Jewish conversation to a new level.

"The Internet is critical," says Avedon, who also is communications director for Synagogue 3000, which works with emerging Jewish communities nationwide.

Without the Internet, many of these new Jewish communities wouldn't even exist.

Kol Zimrah, an independent minyan in New York, has no building of its own but meets once a month at various locations. It sends out an e-mail to the 500 people on its list telling them when and where services will take place.

"All of our communication is over the Internet," Kol Zimrah co-founder Ben Dreyfus says. "We don't have a phone list or snail mail."

In fact, he continues, the minyan was started five years ago by people "sending an e-mail around."

Kol Zimrah posts the music it uses for people to download, learn and use at their own services.

"It's a way of teaching people," Dreyfus says.

The Internet also enables interaction with a congregation. Elie Kaunfer, a founder of Kehilat Hadar in New York, says members and other participants "sign up for programs, offer feedback and pay for events online."

Not only is the Web convenient, it enables young, fiscally challenged Jewish communities to cast a wider net and "advertise" their activities for free. Hadar doesn't spend any money on marketing, Kaunfer says. That's crucial for the many communities that do not charge fixed dues.

Kavana, an independent Jewish community in Seattle, draws its members — or partners, as the community calls them — largely from young Jews who moved to the city to work in the high-tech industry.

The Internet "helps us assess how we are delivering our services, how we get retention of people," notes Suzi LeVine, who used to work at Microsoft and Expedia.
Kavana maintains online charts to track how people move from attending one event to attending three, to finally joining the community.

A new tool is imminent when Daniel Sieradski, founder of the jewschool blog, launches ShulShopper. Sieradski pledges it will "provide the greater Jewish community with entirely free tools and resources conducive to independent Jewish learning and community organizing." The launch was expected Thursday, but the site was not quite ready.

The site will post descriptions of congregations written by its members, and users can log on to look for the congregations that best fit their needs. They can search by various factors, including level of observance, denominational affiliation, size and interfaith friendliness.

ShulShopper will function like a wiki, allowing users to contribute to congregational profiles and "review" their worship experiences — something that makes several people who wrote to Sieradski's blog nervous.

Sieradski says ShulShopper is "an experiment," the hoped-for first step in a more extensive site called Jew It Yourself. That larger venture, he says, will host congregations' social networks and provide tools for independent Jewish study.
One idea Sieradski has is an online beit midrash, or study hall, where "people in Jerusalem and Houston can turn the same page" of text on-screen. [more]

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