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Web Exclusives | “Kinda Like the Jewish People, Only Bloggier!” |
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| Written by Andrew Ratner | |||||
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Jewlicious Invades the Blogosphere Jewish blogs have long been a fixture in the blogosphere. Blogs such as My Urban Kvetch, JDaters Anonymous, and Jewschool have built dedicated followings, addressing Jewish issues from a hipper perspective. Now, another of the most popular Jewish blogs, Jewlicious, is challenging the very definition of a blog by making forays into the real world. I got the chance to speak to the two founders of Jewlicious, David Abitbol, 41, who blogs as cd, and Laya Millman, 23, who blogs as laya. Jewlicious, says Abitbol, was created when he ran into Millman on his way to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Millman had recently made aliyah, and Abitbol suggested she start to blogging about her experience. “What’s a blog?” she asked. And so it began. “Blogs were pretty new back then,” Abitbol said. “I had visited several blogs and had noticed a nascent cool Jew/hipster scene. It seemed that in order to be both Jewish and cool or culturally relevant one had to be dismissive of traditional Judaism and unduly critical of Israel.” Jewlicious was conceived to provide an alternative to that scene. “We can be proud Jews and supporters of Israel and still be socially and culturally relevant in the greater world,” says Abitbol. As such, the site offers posts on current debates and discussions within the Jewish world, criticisms of an otherness and Holocaust-centric identity, daily and political Israeli life, weekly Dvar Torahs, and more. Despite original intentions, many see Jewlicious as party to the Jewish hipster culture that Abitbol objected to in the first place. Millman and Abitbol reject such a classification, but do sympathize with members of that movement. “I don't personally identify as a hipster,” says Millman. “But the positive side of me says that even when the Jewish hipster bubble bursts, those who used that period in time to connect with their Jewish-ness in a way they may have otherwise not done…for them a lasting impact is quite possible.” In addition to their blog, Jewlicious has offered three birthright trips to date and a weekend festival called “Jewlicious at the Beach.” “Jewlicious at the Beach” (there’ve been two so far) was the brainchild of Rabbi Yonah Bookstein and his wife Rachel, the rabbi and director (respectively) of Long Beach Hillel, and Abitbol. “Our aim was simple,” says Millman, “to provide a fun, happening place for the Jews of SoCal to congregate and have a great, Jewlicious time.” The festival provided real life representations of all that the blog was about, hosting panels ranging from “Jewish Activists and Why They Don’t Just Chill,” to a screening of the movie Munich featuring one of the actors Hagai Wigdor. Matisyahu and DJ SoCalled appeared in a panel discussing contemporary Jewish music. As on their site, the Jewlicious team made sure different sides were represented: “For Shabbat,” says Millman, “we had the choice of a traditional service, a meditation group (lead by a former Buddhist who was at one point the Dalai Lama's librarian) and a discussion group about why you weren’t doing either of the other two.” Over 250 young Jews showed up. In the same vein of “Jewlicious at the Beach,” the blog has hosted three birthright trips led by members of the Jewlicious team . “We are more than glorified babysitters,” says Abitbol. “We make it a point to be always available for, and to encourage, questions. [We] try to get participants to think about the role of Israel in their lives and what their Judaism is about.” Some of their own special programming includes a Jerusalem rap night, with Russian, Arabic, English and Hebrew flavors to enjoy, as well as a special Shabbat program where each participant is sent to a family in the Old City of Jerusalem. “We just try to be honest with them” says Millman, “not sugar coat our opinions, and so far people have responded rather well to it.” I ended my interview with them with the two most profound questions I could think of at the moment (a meaning of life question was sort of out of left field, I thought): what do you think of all these Jewish blogs out there, and do you think it is spreading? Abitbol told me that even the Jewish Federation has been reading Jewlicious. “They do not know what to make of us, but they cannot ignore us [or] the entire JBlogosphere, which aptly represents the voices of the silent majority of Jews who never had a voice before.” “Hopefully the birthright trips will continue, the festival model will expand, the t-shirt line will be re-launched,” said Millman. “Then, we storm an Elders of Zion meeting and take over.”
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