Protecting Our Kids from Online Dangers Like Fortnite

Yesterday, I took my 14 1/2-year-old son with me to Toledo, Ohio, where I officiated a funeral. It was nice to spend some time together, but I also wanted to get him out of the house so he couldn't play Fortnite all morning. The new season of this live-action video game came out yesterday and that means that millions of boys his age were glued to the screen trying to get more "kills." At the baseball practice I ran yesterday evening, it was a losing battle trying to get these teenage boys to focus on baseball and not discuss their experiences with Fortnite earlier that day. In this week's Detroit Jewish News, I write about why we parents should be concerned with live-action games like Fortnite (highly addictive and violent) and other areas of the web, where danger lurks for our teens.

Here is the article from the July 12, 2018 edition of the Detroit Jewish News:

Protecting Our Kids in the Dark Web

Earlier this year, I was a guest speaker on a panel hosted by the National Council of Jewish Women. The topic was how parents and grandparents can be more vigilant in protecting our children from predators who lurk online seeking to abduct or abuse unsuspecting youth. Sitting next to Autumn Ceci, the Southfield police officer who investigates sex crimes and human trafficking, and a local psychologist, we each spoke about how the Internet has helped those who seek to harm young people and made it easier for them to hide behind secret identities online. Keeping children and teens from being deceived online is a very serious issue that can lead to human trafficking or sex abuse, both crimes that are plaguing our country.

Police detectives like Officer Ceci investigate incidents including sexual assaults, juvenile offenses, child abuse, neglect, missing persons and gang activity. I was prepared to share with the audience ways to protect our children when they’re using social networks and video games, but I was unaware of how widespread the issue of human trafficking has become in the Digital Age.

Online multiplayer action survival games, like the very popular “Fortnite – Battle Royale’, is dangerous as it poses severe risks to children and teens. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) stated that they believed Fortnite was putting children at risk of online grooming. A news story reported that a mother overheard attempts to groom her 10-year old son through his Xbox videogame console as she sat on the sofa next to him. The mother heard an adult male addressing her son by name through her TV speakers, asking her son questions about sex. In another story, a mother discovered an adult male asking her 12-year old son to perform sex acts on him, and for the boy to take and send naked images of himself. These and other reports prompted many schools nationally to issue warnings to parents.

At the panel moderated by NCJW, it was clear that many of the parents and grandparents in the room hadn’t realized just how common it is for young people to be targeted online by predators posing as other people in chat rooms, on social media sites and in video games. I recommended several ways adults should monitor and protect children using technology.

Technology to Improve Kids' Physical Fitness

I arrived early to a recent National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball game and immediately noticed the oddity of players on both teams, in addition to the three referees, all wearing the same bright red t-shirts during their warm-up period in place of their regular pregame attire. I took out my phone and Googled "NBA FIT," which was emblazoned on the shirts, to learn that this was part of the NBA's Live Healthy Week presented by Kaiser Permanente. The goal of this special week dedicated to fitness and healthy living had three simple pillars: be active, eat healthy and play together.

What a great idea I thought. As a father, I find myself often lamenting that my children's generation doesn't play outside as much as we did as kids. There are, quite simply, too many distractions competing for their time. If they're not playing X-Box or Sony Playstation, their faces are staring at the glowing screens of their iPad or smartphone. I've long been thinking of a way to capitalize on the youngest generation's love affair with technology while also encouraging them to be more active.

This mashup of technology and fitness has been successfully generated by the newly formed sports and entertainment company Day 6 Sports Group, based in Los Angeles. This company is teaming up with the NBA to re-launch Backyard Sports, a series of digital games starring pro athletes as kid versions of themselves. After originally debuting in 1997 by Atari, the Backyard Sports brand will now be available in mobile game form for smartphones and tablets, making them even more accessible for today's generation of tech-savvy kids.

Sitting Shiva for Traditional Shiva

I've been thinking about death and mourning quite a bit lately. To begin with, the first week of the new year brought with it a rash of deaths here in the Detroit Jewish community. There were a fair share of elderly grandparents who died in their 80s and 90s during the first week of 2012, but that isn't all that uncommon. Within a one-week period, however, there were tragic and untimely deaths in every age demographic ranging from a drug overdose to horrific traffic accidents to sudden massive heart attacks to the succumbing of long illnesses. There was a lot of mourning and a lot of grieving here in the Detroit Jewish community.

I've also been thinking about death and mourning because I've been working on an article for The Detroit Jewish News about the Shiva Connect website which helps mourners coordinate shiva following the death of a loved one. The research I've done on this website has pushed me to look closer at how Jews are observing shiva in the 21st century.

Author Bruce Feiler's article in today's  NY Times was difficult to read because it makes me think that we should perhaps sit shiva for the traditional expression of Judaism's mourning rituals which have been around for thousands of years. Feiler, the author of Walking the Bible, writes about observing a "secular shiva" for his friends who have died recently (or for his friends' relatives). Rather than paying a condolence call to the home of the mourners, Feiler's friends have gathered elsewhere and ordered pizza and a fruit salad and listened to eulogies by the grieving family. Bereft of prayers or the obligatory rites of Jewish mourning, Feiler finds this "secular shiva" to be a natural outgrowth of our busy, complicated lives without religion in the Digital Age.

Gefilte Fish Gets Video Game

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

I thought something smelled fishy when I received an email from fellow blogger Esther Kustanowitz today. Indeed it was. I was hopeful that the skilled writer had sent me a well-crafted sermon that I could simply deliver on Rosh Hashanah morning, but instead it was only an email to inform me that her friend Asael Kahana of K/Logic had created an interactive Rosh Hashanah card that is a mashup between Gefilte fish and Space Invaders.

Yep, a mashup of Gefilte fish and the video game Space Invaders. I know, I know. You're thinking the same thing I was thinking when I received Esther's email. "How has it taken this long to create an interactive game that so seemlessly integrates the odd poached fish mince staple food of Jewish holidays with the Japanese arcade game created in 1978?"

As Esther explains:

Gefilte fish gets a bad rap, but is considered integral to many Ashkenazi Jewish holiday celebrations. If you've always hated this particular format of pureed and cooked fish, now a leading creative online marketing agency in Israel brings you your chance to shoot it down from the skies in an engaging, interactive card/video game - a mashup of the traditional mashed-up fish and the classic video game Space Invaders. Presenting...Gefilte Invaders! (You can play on the K/Logic site or below!).

"I have always had a Gefilte Fetish," Asael Kahana, K/Logic's creative director said. "There is something so iconic about this dish's presentation and look. Same with the classic Space Invaders game that is a cult classic still today. I combined both because I thought that Gefilte fish may have a long tradition, yet people would really rather shoot it than eat it. The result was a great reminder of tradition and classics in an engaging interactive card for our customers."

I admit it was fun playing this Gefilte fish version of Space Invaders and it was a wonderful procrastination from preparing for the holiday. Not to mention, I got all nostalgic as I thought back to my childhood in the early 80s popping quarters into the Space Invaders arcade game. Nevertheless, I'm still not convinced Esther sent me that email to publicize her friend's creative Rosh Hashanah card or even to simply wish me a "Shanah Tovah!" I really think she just wanted me to visit her blog where she used the opportunity of her friend's Geflte Invaders to tell the following joke:

When contemplating the fish populations of the ocean, how can one identify the Gefilte fish? [pause for effect]

-It's the one with the carrot on its head"

On second thought, maybe it was Esther's joke that smelled fishy.