Jewish Live, the 24/7 Festival of Digital Judaism

The Covid-19 pandemic has made us feel physically distant to each other because we cannot congregate at our synagogues, community centers, or summer camps. However, the Jewish community has not shifted away from community during the quarantine. Rather, we have been brought together virtually thanks to the Internet and streaming video conferencing. While we cannot pray inside the local synagogue buildings we are accustomed to, we are able to virtually “attend” just about any synagogue we want using applications like Zoom, Facebook Live, or YouTube.

Three cutting edge Jewish visionaries saw this 21st-century phenomenon as a prime opportunity to launch a website that is “one-stop shopping” for those interested in plugging in and learning or praying with a community of Jews anywhere in the country. Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg of the Judaism Unbound podcast linked up with Apryl Stern to create jewishLIVE.org, which is a project of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future with funding from the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah.

The three out-of-the-box thinkers saw in early March that Jewish events were suddenly being canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. They wondered how they could help fill the void of in-person Jewish events taking place, like conferences, synagogue services, Jewish musical concerts, and lectures. These in-person events would have to migrate to the digital landscape, they realized. Libenson and Rofeberg were already familiar with this landscape because they migrated there when they launched their popular podcast.

Why Synagogues and Jewish Nonprofits Need to Update Their Communications in the Digital Age

"Because that's how we've always done things!" I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard a professional in a synagogue or Jewish nonprofit utter those words. For some reason, synagogues and Jewish nonprofits are very late adopters to new technology. Even synagogues that have invested in expensive, dynamic websites are still sending out hard copy flyers in the mail, which is not economically prudent, effective or efficient.

Donors to synagogues and Jewish nonprofits have become more focused in the past several years on how much of their donation goes to overhead costs and how much is allocated to fulfilling the organization's actual mission. Websites like Charity Navigator and Guidestar provide the percentages making it easier for us to know just how far our charitable gifts will go. This leads many to wonder how much of that $18 donation to your favorite local organization or congregation in tribute to your friend's beloved mother goes to sending out the tribute card informing them of your generosity.

In some cases, it might be as much as 10% of that small donation going to overhead, and with today’s high tech communications it’s quite unnecessary too. In the technology age when most charitable organizations make it possible to donate online, the next step in the process is very low-tech. Rather than sending a nice automated e-mail to the recipient of your charitable tribute, most organizations allocate a lot of resources to the process -- spending an employee's time preparing a tribute card, printing out the card and envelope, and then paying for the postage to mail it out. The funds used in that low-tech processing could have gone directly to the cause. So why don't these nonprofits and synagogues adapt to the new technology? "Because that's how we've always done things," they'll explain.

Clip of a Constant Contact newsletter from Adat Shalom Synagogue in Metro Detroit, Michigan

Jewish Non-Profits and Social Media - Do They Get It?

Cross-posted to the Jewish Techs blog at The Jewish Week

As a rabbi who is a social mediaologist, I find myself consulting a lot of synagogues and Jewish nonprofits on their social media strategy. The leaders of these institutions all recognize that they require a social media strategy, but the plan for how it will be implemented varies greatly.

Many synagogues in 2012 have yet to budget for social media marketing so they look for the quickest and cheapest solution. In most cases this comprises of identifying a volunteer lay person or existing staff member who is willing and able to set up the congregation's social media presence across the major networks. In some instances this is a teen who claims to be a Facebook wiz and over-promises and under-delivers. With many volunteers, congregations often get what they pay for.

Synagogues and Jewish nonprofits are jumping on the social media bandwagon, but are they taking the initiative seriously enough?

Jewish organizations seem to be a little further ahead than synagogues in the social media department. Third party retailers like Target and Home Depot have forced nonprofit institutions to get on the social media bandwagon quickly because of their online contests in which the retailer partners with nonprofits for fundraising prizes. These crowd-raising initiatives have required nonprofits to bolster their social identity online to compete in the contests.