Jews in cyberspace: Staying connected through blogs...and vlogs By Judie Jacobson WEST HARTFORD-Not long ago Marco Greenberg, founder and president of the New York-based internet video production company Reel Biography, was conducting a training seminar for Israeli spokespeople when he showed attendees a quirky and increasingly popular daily video blog - or "vlog" - called "Rocketboom." Would something like that resonate for Israel? Greenberg wondered. Instinctively, Tamar Abramowitz knew that it would. Thirty-six yours later, the hip young woman who works for Israel's Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, set out to create the site's first post. Soon after, on February 16, 2006, the Israel Consulate in New York City launched Israel Video Blog - the first ever video blog created by a country. The site received 100,000 hits on its first day...which crashed the server. A temporary set back only. Today, in addition to Abramowitz' inaugural video depicting the diversity of life in Israel, the site includes video blogs from, among others, an all-female Israeli formation skydiving team...students from Israel's Thelma Yelling High School of the Arts in a jam session with a jazz class at New York's La Guardia High School for the Performing Arts...the interactive dance troupe Tippa Poppa in performance...etc. Simply put, Israel Video Blog invites Israelis and visitors to Israel to post videos about life in the Jewish state, highlighting their passions. They offer a side of Israel that, according to David Saranga, the consulate's consul for media and public affairs, is not often seen in the mainstream press. "This is a great platform to bypass the conventional media which are mostly, if not only, concentrated on the conflict and do not represent the real situation in Israel," says Zaranga. Greenberg, who worked with the government of Israel to produce www.israelvideblog.org and continues to maintain for the state, sees the vlog as "an opportunity for Israel to have its own channel that is truly grass roots and puts the most real face on the country." "There are parts of Israel that are awesome," he says. "There is Israeli brain power and creativity that the world doesn't get exposed to." Describing video blogs as the equivalent of online interactive t.v. stations in which the content is created by viewers, Greenberg, who maintains a home in Weston and lives full time in the Berkshires, calls Israel Video Blog "a citizen-inspired star search in science, art and lifestyle." Though Greenberg does not see himself as "hard core blogger," he nonetheless believes that "new media can be effective for the people who want content that is real, authentic, updated, interactive and that moves." That, he says, is what Israel Video Blog is all about. SUBHEAD Text blogs grow in popularity According to Greenberg, video blogging has the potential to "leapfrog" over text blogging. But that hasn't happened yet, and even the Israel Video Blog includes a text blog component, as viewers add their written comments in response to each video blog. Text blogging is growing more and more popular by the post and click...and so is the propensity among Americans to create their own sites. In fact, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, an estimated eight million American adults are the proud maintainers of their own personal blog sites. Just how many of those sites can be described as "Jewish" - that is, on Jewish topics and/or aimed at a specifically Jewish audience -- no one knows. But blogosphere mavens say the statistic is significant. "I'd estimate the number of active (Jewish) blogs at some several thousand," veteran blogger Steven Weiss recently told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The 24-year old New Yorker, who currently maintains blogs about religion, food and the Jewish college experience, describes the average Jewish blogger as young and highly affiliated, Jewishly-speaking. Kind of like himself. "As you move up the age brackets, the popularity drops off somewhat, though many in the organizational and rabbinic establishment have started paying a lot of attention to them." The Religious Action Committee of Reform Judaism, for example, recently introduced its own blog. Likewise, some rabbis and rabbinic students have launched their own blogs. Rabbi Stanton Zamek of Congregation Beth Shalom turned to the blogosphere to help congregants in his Baton Rouge shul find comfort and stay connected in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "When the hurricanes hit, we felt the need to get information out regularly," says Zamek. "It was a way of not forgetting this history in motion." Zamek was somewhat surprised and bemused when the media picked up on what he calls his "musings about this or that." Before anyone could say George Walker Bush, the office of presidential speech writing tapped into the blog...and Zamek found himself on the guest list for the White House Chanukah party. So what are Jewish bloggers seeking on the Web? The answer is Talmudic. That is, what aren't they seeking? "I started looking at other Jewish blogs to see if there were other people like me out there - single, Jewish and blogging," says 30-something New York blogger Esther Kustanowitz. A freelance writer, Kustanowitz also uses blogging to solicit work. "I'm not going to lie - it's also a place for self-promotion," she says. "It's doing p.r. work for me even when I'm not doing anything for me. That's the Internet for you." While many seek to broaden their social circles, others use the blogosphere to promote political and religious viewpoints. "Blogs provide public spaces - and safe spaces at that - for people to discuss what matters most to them," says 26-year old Dan Sieradski, a blogger based in Jerusalem. The 26-year old Sieradski, who described himself as a committed Jew who rejects religious dogma and authority and leads a life "exemplified by tensions and contradiction," uses his blog Orthodox Anarchist to "embrace those contradictions." Sites such as Sieradski's often succeed in provoking debate. Everyone wants in on the blog, for example, when a site like Jewlicious - a group blog that discusses Judaism, Israel and pop culture - tackles a hot-button topic such as premarital sex in the Orthodox community or the identity crisis that some say grips the Conservative movement. And the nameless/faceless nature of blogging means the comments can sometimes cross the line between healthy debate and vitriolic name-calling. "It's a paradigm of disagreement," says Kustanowitz. "Because of the anonymity and lack of accountability, people tend to not think before they write." Jewlicious, a site whose exchanges are often pockmarked with incendiary and acrimonious language, explains it best on its home page. "Welcome to Jewlicious," it tells the viewer, "Where our delusions of grandeur and mutual admiration for each other are rivaled only by our self-loathing and in-fighting. Just like the Jewish people, only bloggier!" The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) contributed to this story.