J-blogosphere

J-Blogosphere is the sector of the blogosphere made up of blogs that focus on Jewish matters, or "J-blogs".

General

A blog is generally accepted as a "J-blog", or part of the "J-blogosphere", if the blogger is Jewish and specifically discusses Jewish political, religious, or personal themes in his or her blog. Israellycool, the site which administers the awards for the J-blogosphere, makes a fence of Israel advocacy and pro-Israel attitudes, loosely defined, for the competition. Even if an Israel advocacy blog is not written by Jews, it is eligible to compete. This has caused Little Green Footballs, supervised by Charles Johnson, a non-Jew, to win the Israel Advocacy award two years in a row and to be mentioned by Gil Student of Hirhurim in his presentation as an essential blog. On the other side, Glenn Greenwald's acclaimed blog, Unclaimed Territory, has yet to be claimed by the J-blogosphere and nothing Greenwald has written on his blog points to any religious belief or practice. A subtler fence is that the blogs which generally consider themselves part of the J-blogosphere are in English. English blogs generally do not link to Hebrew blogs which may cover some of the same topics, even if the readers know Hebrew. There is no definite figure for how many J-blogs there are, although some of the most popular have come together in a Jewish category for BlogAds.

J-blogs cover the range of political and religious ideology within Judaism: there are ultra-Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, post-denominational, and secular J-blogs, as well as the flourishing subgenre of those Orthodox (or Conservative) in practice but skeptic in belief, and J-blogs fall into liberal and conservative camps with respect to both Israel and the United States. Two occasionally-feuding blogs with contributors from New York and Israel, Jewlicious and Jewschool, have also staked out Jewish pop culture for themselves, and this category was recognized by a "Jewish Culture Blog" award at the latest JIBs.

JRants and JewishBlogging are the most prominent sites which collect feeds from Jewish blogs. Haveil Havalim, discussed below, allows the author to pick out the best of the J-blogs in his or her opinion every week.

The average Jewish blog gets a very small number of hits a day compared to the top 10 liberal or conservative political blogs, for example. (The 800-pound counterexample is Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom.) A very popular blog will have tens of regular commenters who all know each other and their personal beliefs and quirks, and will cultivate a sense of community. Across different Jewish communities, J-blogs allow people to discuss halakha, hashkafa (which comes from a Hebrew root that means "outlook" and can be used to mean "Jewish philosophy"), religious lifestyles, hypocrisy in religious communities, and so on, and to discover an online community which cares about the same religious issues. Godol Hador, the proprietor of a philosophical blog, has found that some of his readers regard him as their rabbi and flirted with the idea of being the leader of the "Conservative Charedi Movement"(Conservative in beliefs about the authorship of the Torah, Charedi in adherence to halacha). The Jewish blogosphere also helps to spread Torah because of the learning of many of the participants.

The early history of the Jewish blogging world is generally murky, and many Jewish bloggers may have begun completely unaware of the communal activity of the other Jewish bloggers. In truth there really isn't a well defined consensus on what a Jewish blog is and as such there is some confusion about what is going on. Furthermore one of the great challenges is that at times there is a bit of tunnel vision and for a variety of reasons many bloggers don't venture beyond reading about a half dozen or so blogs leading them to ignore how many others exist.

The JIBs

The JIBs, the Jewish and Israel Blog Awards, founded and hosted by Israellycool in 2004, are important and central in the J-blogosphere. The aim of the awards (a play on the word jib, the small triangular sail of a sailboat that directs the wind into the main sail) is to direct new readers towards Jewish, Israeli, and pro-Israel blogs. In 2005, Israellycool joined forces with the Jerusalem Post, who took over hosting duties, bringing the JIBs even more exposure. The JIB process begins with nominations by the blogging community at Israellycool and this year had a semifinal and final round involving an automated poll and allowing one vote every three days at the Post's website. Good-natured rivalry and campaigning are also associated with this event.

Haveil Havalim

The carnival of Jewish blogs is Haveil Havalim, a weekly collection of Jewish & Israeli blog highlights, tidbits and points of interest collected from blogs all around the world. David Gerstman, who blogs as Soccer Dad and at Israpundit, invented the concept and continues to coordinate the monthly posts which rotate among bloggers. The term “Haveil Havalim”, which means "Vanity of Vanities", is from Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, which is traditionally ascribed to King Solomon. Solomon built the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and later on got all bogged down in materialism and other “excesses” and realized that it was nothing but “hevel”, or in English, “vanities.” The participating blogs are from a variety of circles within the J-blogosphere, though some circles are more involved than others. One of the purposes of Haveil Havalim is to expose newer bloggers to larger audiences and expand the circles those bloggers belong to.

Initially Soccer Dad contacted Biur Chametz, Willow Tree and Crossing the Rubicon who all agreed to the idea and were among the earliest hosts. Afterwards he also asked Dov Bear to help out. Bloghead volunteered. That is how the project originated.

Ironically Biur Chametz and Crossing the Rubicon provided alternative translations to Haveil Havalim. Biur Chametz referenced this article with one alternative. Crossing the Rubicon provided an alternative the first timeshe hosted.

In the summer of 2005 Not Quite Perfect was recruited to be the official artist of Haveil Havalim. Not only does Not Quite Perfect provide graphics associated with the Jewish holiday, she has a Flikr gallery with her most recent Jewishly themed works.

Eventually tools such as Conservative Cat's Carnival Submission Form and BlogCarnival appeared. Both helped greatly with the administration if the Jewish carnival, Haveil Havalim.

Blogs A Rabbi Must Follow

Blogs a Rabbi Must Follow, compiled by blogger Rabbi Gil Student, is a presentation recently given to the Rabbinical Council of America, an Orthodox organization, and is very informative for any newcomer. This presentation explains the importance of J-blogs, the impact of the J-blogosphere upon Jewish communities, lists popular subjects and topics within the J-blogosphere and directs the reader to important blogs. Gil's blog, Hirhurim is one of the most respected inside and outside the J-blogosphere.

In the Media

Chicago Jewish News article, “Can We Blog? New Way to Talk About Jewish Issues”, Rachel Silverman

Jewsweek article, "The Jewish Corner of the Blogosphere", Alli Magidsohn

Cleveland Jewish News article, 20 October 2005, "Don't Call Me Rebbetzin", Lila Hanft

JTA article, 18 January 2006, "Sermonizing Mingles With Sex Talk As Jewish Surfers Pick Up Blogging", Rachel Silverman

External Links

Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards 2005

Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards 2004

The J-Blogosphere Picture