The Nefesh B’ Nefesh “Jewish” Blogger Convention Looks Kinda Like the Beyond BT Shabbaton
It is well known that Nefesh B’ Nefesh mostly cares about the frum. And go figure – their “Jewish” Blogger convention features frum, frum, and more frum bloggers.
Now that’s their right, but they have NO RIGHT to act as if it is a JEWISH Blogger convention.
This is complete nonsense. This is a FRUMMIE blogger convention.
How in hell is it a “First International Jewish Bloggers Convention”?
Oh, that’s cause their going to have both kinds OF EACH. Israel AND American bloggers (Will they have a INTERcontinental breakfast also?) and because they have Modern Orthodox AND ultra-Orthodox!
Ezzie and friends have noted that the whole experience is like “reliving Camp Moshava [an Orthodox summer camp] watching the goings-ons.”
Exactly, Ezzie and Erachet.
Ezzie is all excited that the “Jewish” Blogger convention’s proximity to the Beyond BT Shabbaton! Oh, hip hip hooray, but why don’t Beyond BT and Nefesh B’ Nefesh just combine their programs and save $5 on marketing materials? And each will gain from the other’s constituency — I mean, talk about a similar base, Jesus.
Demand that Nefesh B’ Nefesh change the name of their conference to “The Frum Bloggers conference.”
They have no right to pretend that secular and liberal Jewry is represented in any significant way. Of course, for Nefesh B’Nefesh, secular and liberal Jewry apparently don’t count as part of the Jewish people in the first place, so they don’t realize they are doing anything wrong.
Updated: There are a couple of secular bloggers mixed into this “International Convention,” so whatever.
47 comments
How is this frum at all? From what I saw on their site, they’re just a bunch of zionist scum and zionism starts at MO and continues left.
As I write this from the beach in Tel Aviv, I have to ask, would a frum blogger use the term “dipshit?” Look for our coverage of the Jewish Bloggers conference in august. Now I an off to see my friends Yana and Devorah -both liberal secular residents of Hell Aviv who came to Israel thanks to NBN.
CK,
I gotta love you for bringing your laptop to the beach in Tel Aviv. Crikey!
ck,
you are LWMO, great. Perhaps Nefesh B’ Nefesh should get an award for extending their camp so very far Left. How about a rubber Rubashkin chicken? Would that work for NBN?
Also, that’s very nice of Nefesh B’ Nefesh to do their fucking job and absorb your friends even if they aren’t frum. Really, how open-minded. They must truly love Klal Yisroel. But we aren’t talking about that. We are talking about who they are targeting under FALSE ecumenical pretense.
DK,
It isn’t their JOB to do anything. They are essentially a charitable organization. They can freely pick and choose who they want to service, and they service plenty of liberal/secular Jews.
Oh, and speaking of organizations who operate under false pretenses, how about Hazon pretending that they service they entire Jewish community, when (last I heard) they had 1 frum grantee. Then they blow up his picture to make it larger than life for their fund raising purposes, and pretend like they service the entire Jewish ‘rainbow’.
are you bitter you weren’t invited DK? jk
OlehGirl and MyShrapnel aren’t religious. JWhile CK may be religious, Jewlicious is hardly a religious blog, nor is Jack’s Shack blog.
What are you talking about?
Oh, you meant no ANTI-religious bloggers are represented.
you should make a counter convention in Shmarya’s Mother’s basement. You could cry on each other’s shoulders.
Half Sours: I was surfing the Internet on my phone, not my laptop. But you gotta love me anyway. And yeah, what Dave said.
Also, I resent this idea that I am LWMO. I practice (or aspire to practice) the Judaism of my forefathers and their forefathers from Morocco. Our worship predates even the notion of Orthodox Judaism, let alone left or right wing Modern, Haredi, Chassidic, Misnaged or any of that “narishkeit.” Why does everything have to be seen through Ashkenazic tinted lenses?
So yeah Kelsey. You’re a little out of line here. Also, I’m coming over to your house. After I kick your ass, we can go have a beer and do some serious kvetching. The Eagle lands at Kennedy on Aug 3rd. Warn all the usual suspects.
“Also, I resent this idea that I am LWMO.”
I’ve noticed on this blog there is a ton of boxing and labeling of people. You cannot live like that, trying to assess someone in a single phrase. It is not accurate and not nice. People are multifaceted, both religiously and emotionally. For someone who considers himself so smart, Kvetcher, you should not be so quick to push people into file folders. Are you so simplistic that you could be labeled by others?
“Also, I resent this idea that I am LWMO.”
So does SHAS. They want you to frum it up, ck.
Hey can you at least link me in the post, I am one of the “frum” bloggers appearing at the convention.
I guess I would also be sour if I hadn’t gotten a free trip to Israel- Nefesh Bnefesh rocks- oh and a free trip on the way back to Turkey as well.
You might as become frum just for the perks, forget about cholent and rdiculously high tuition prices, we get free trips to Israel.
Oh and just because I’m frum ahem, religiously observant does not mean I’m no liberal.
oh and a free trip on the way back to Turkey as well.
I hate you! What are you people going to do in Turkey? You can’t eat anything there anyway…
Hey can you at least link me in the post, I am one of the “frum” bloggers appearing at the convention.
No.
Awww dk upset he didn’t get an invitation?
My strongest point of criticism with all those free trips to Israel with whatever org is that 30% of the US Jewish population and half of the world’s Jewish population live below poverty line, and large sums that could well be needed to help put this people in a situation where they could make a better living for themselves (e.g. through education) are spent on free trips for people that partly, or maybe even largely, would have no qualms about spending as much on a handbag or an electronic gadget as a luxurious trip to Israel would cost them. Where’s the justice, the highest goal of Jewish eschatology, in that?
I’ve got a full-time job and can cover my travel expenses myself. That’s why I won’t apply for any of those programmes.
We’re bloggers for Golem’s sake. We contribute to what are considered online diaries. We’re neither journalists, nor political analysts, nor sociologists - just a bunch of people having fun sharing ideas and connecting to people via this medium. That said, any blogger conference which is not an online conference seems pretty paradox per se.
Froylein,
I’m going to focus on one of the things that you said that stuck out sorely at me:
Blogging is become an ever more legitimate form of journalism. Every major publication in the U.S. now has their own blogs. While the tone is somewhat more relaxed, and the form somewhat different, good blogging still qualifies as journalism. Just look at Failed Messiah, or our own DK for examples of important stories cracked. Different people use the medium in different ways obviously. Nevertheless blogs are rapidly replacing the more established beacons of information. I think that as a scholar you’d be remiss to dismiss blogging as merely another means of social networking.
Don’t forget to register: http://www.nbn.org.il/bloggers/
HalfSours,
The huge difference between an average blogger and an average journalist is that serious journalists usually have learnt their trade; over here, that would entail university studies in Germanics, journalism, political and social studies in addition to a lot of time spent as an intern at either a quality newspaper and / or a serious TV or radio station. Journalists co-operate with news agencies, travel to the sites they want to report from, doublecheck their sources etc.
The blogs maintained on the sites of major newspapers generally are also created by their staff. Usually they are opinion pieces rather than reports, which equals them to the columns most newspapers feature.
Compared to that, bloggers are essayists or columnists best case, avid letters-to-the-editor writers in most cases, and in many cases even pretty pointless.
Blogging is a kind of publishing, but not the kind of publishing where the pieces one hands in undergo close examination by an experienced editor. More and more people have come to understand that the weakness of the internet is that there is no quality control; anybody may publish anything. Thus blogs do not replace conventional media unless those are going to drastically lower their standards. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any interesting or fun blogs, mind you, but they do not live up to the requirements of quality journalism, they do not substitute for an expert’s opinion where one is needed plus they are subject to easy manipulation. More and more universities have started failing students for citing internet sources, and even those subjects that still need to admit them due to information radically changing (e.g. environmental science) expect their students to crucially examine their sources; a few of my former professors I’m still in touch with require their students to write a one-page critique of every internet source they use which should make clear why they need to make use of that source as opposed to referring to print material. I may cite a newspaper article from a quality paper, e.g. Süddeutsche Zeitung - I’d still be expected to doublecheck any claims and be able to differentiate between an opinion piece, a news / feature story or an expository text - but citing a blog post would make me the laughing stock of the academic world. And it’s not as if my former professors just were computer or internet illiterate; to the contrary, one has been one of the leading researchers on computer language acquisition, teaching just that in the IT department and linguistics in the Anglistics department.
Sarah/Froylein,
I recently had a stint working at a very mainstream journalism establishment. From that experience, I believe that your high expectations might be somewhat naive. Simply because something is published in print does not make it an authority on anything. Any yokel who wants to send 4 bucks per copy to the printer can come up with a book, likewise periodicals. It’s all a matter of which sources have proven themselves trustworthy.
Oops!
What I wrote above would make it seem as if mainstream news publications aren’t scrupulous about fact checking; they are for the most part. What I mean about having false expectations is your conception that all these big journalists have some sort of formal schooling or training. I understand that in Europe your profession is practically ordained from birth (I think in Britain you must decide whether you want to go into the sciences or humanities by age 16!). But in the U.S. at least, especially in journalism I’m learning, it’s much less about formal schooling and much more about gumption.
BTW Froylein,
Have a pleasant flight!
I’m not really sure how to feel about this. I mean I hear why dk is pissed. but really its their choice. how many times do we hear people speaking for a group that they really don’t?
I think at the end of their day its their choice, but it does mean that the conference itself loses some reliability
Heh, thanks, but there are vast differences between publishers; you can a bbook on Judaism published at let’s say, Ulstein, which’ll likely not live up to the highest standards, or get one from Jüdische Verlagsanstalt Berlin, which’ll cater the creme de la creme of Judaistics to you. In the English speaking world, there’s a select number of publisher that’s trustworthy.
I Britain, you can obtain A-levels, which is the “general” maturity level, but also go via a polytechnical / vocational college, which meas you’ll decide on one track for the last couple of years, but you were on an average lower level of education to begin with.
It’s much different again in Germany, where the “highest” level combines high school and college and is designed to prepare for university (two foreign languages are mandatory, three expected from you). There are schools that focus on economics, sports etc., but the general degree, which is considered the most desirable one, requires credits in the following subjects: German, maths, one foreign language (if English wasn’t the first foreign language, you need to enrol for that; more languages are optional), history, political studies, geography, one science subject (more optional), arts or music, ethics or religious studies. Depending on your federal state, you need to pick two or three majors from that range; there’s a host of other topics you must pick at least two from to get your minimum number of credit classes (e.g. philosophy, psychology, education, IT,…).
There are also people in the US that study journalism, e.g. Rafi from http://planetyekke.wordpress.com/ .
(DK, hope you don’t mind me posting that link.)
np.
Blogging is like open source information. While bloggers don’t usually have fact checkers on staff, or a staff for that matter, if a blog has a large audience and a lively community, you can be pretty sure that if they publish something erroneous, someone will chime in and correct it. One need only look at this post to see how that works. Kelsey published information that was erroneous. He was smacked down and made a few grudging corrections. So NBN went from an organization that only cares about frum Jews to one that cares mostly about frum Jews.Do note that at no time in your application process does NBN ask you anything about your level of observance. Also note the very many totally secular people in Israel who have benefited from NBNs largess. Does NBN bring over a lot of frum Jews? Is that because a large chunk of people making aliyah from US/Canada/UK tend to be religious? Hmmm.
Also, Kelsaleh claimed that everyone involved in the blogger conference was frum. Note again that anyone can apply to participate and at no time is religious observance an issue. Note also that Kelsey had to update his post where he recognized the fact that there was secular/liberal participation on the panels.
So you see froylein? Open Source information dissemination works so that the entire world is our fact checking department! Is it perfect? Is it foolproof? No. But then again, neither is fancy shmancy journalism. As for me, I speak 3 languages, have a BA in Poli Sci and a law degree. I’ve also worked at several traditional print publications as a student. So what do you say froylein? Would you read my blog?
ck, I read your blog from the right to the left.
“Would you read my blog?”
Now that you’ve let us know you’ve got a law degree? We’ll have to think about it.
Oops. Forgot the
Judi: It seems like every monkey has a law degree. My comment as kind of an inside joke because froyo, as she is sometimes fondly called, is a Jewlicious blogger. She doesn’t just read the blog, she writes for it! But yeah, definitely read Jewlicious. It’s like smoking - all the cool kids re doing it.
Uh oh, somebody forgot to tell me that I am batting cleanup for the G-d Squad.
I suppose that if you want to get some attention writing something outlandish is a good way to do it.
I am many things, but Frum isn’t one of them.
P.S. I am not M.O. either.
First of all, this post proves Jews can argue about everything. Who’s frummer than whom? Who deserves a free trip to Israel? Who’s anti-religious? (Don’t tempt me.)
I always suspected I was a lefty liberal somewhere. I guess it’s on this flight.
At the “Convention,” which I had actually hoped they’d call a “reception” or “gathering,” there’s an opportunity for people who can’t be present to actually participate online, so that’s something that enables outside participation.
And as far as this trip being a free trip to Israel–my understanding is that NBN charters the plane, so the plane is all theirs and flies with or without people in the seats. Some of those seats might as well be occupied by bloggers interested in documenting and exploring the process of aliyah…
And lastly, I agree that CK’s not frum. He’s his own kind of Jew.
The fact that ck is kind of a mental case does not have anything to do with the fact that he is Orthodox. Plenty of Orthodox Jews are mental cases, and so too, not all of them are fundamentalists, even if the non-fundamentalist Jews are an ever-shrinking segment of the total Orthodox population.
Hello Monsey!
Jack, I did not realize at first that you were on this trip, and you are indeed an example of a non-Orthodox Jew on this program.
Just please don’t let that Ezzie dude and all his frummie Touro/Camp Morasha friends tell you that you are “immature” for not being Orthodox like them.
I never went to Camp Morasha. Or any camps, really.
Plus, the immature label is usually reserved for you, but in the context of “grow up”.
Ezzie, you are going to find that your consistent and sustained attempts to shut me and anyone else down who disagrees with you and yours– truly disagrees with you–far outside the paradigm of “Do you say Hallel on Israeli Independence Day with a bracha or without a bracha?–only are well received when preaching to the converted.
Preaching to the converted, Ezzie. That’s what you are good for. Like what you are going to do at the Beyond BT Shabbaton, where you tell your mesiras nefesh story of going from Modern Orthodox to LWUO.
You can do that, Ezzie.
Spent a million summers at Camp Ramah in California and Canada. Still don’t get what the problem is.
I highly doubt Ezzie is trying to shut anyone down, whether they agree with him or not, so stop picking on him. And what I said about Moshava had absolutely nothing to do with the blogger convention and neither did my post about Israel. They both had to do with watching over the internet a Nefesh b’Nefesh flight land in Israel.
From what to what? LOL. Kelsey, you’re hilarious. Too bad you’re not trying to be.
happy birthday kelsey. still gonna kick your ass. and muffti is going to be in town on the 7th. It’s gonna be a mighty jewlicious month for ya!
Any jblogger can sign up to participate. Kvetching before it happens and not taking part is like complaining about the results of elections you don’t vote in.
Vote with your feet or mouse…
Very interesting give and take Re: Blogging VS Mainstream Journalism.
Jacob da Jew,
How did this discussion reach mainstream journalism?
I dunno. Ask your Godless heathen friends at Haaretz.
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