If you plan on being at the conference, feel free to approach me and say hello. I am pretty sure I won’t bite.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/09/10/nefesh-bnefesh-jewish-blogging-conference/

Any newspaper articles about blogging naturally catch my eye.  Al achat kama v’ kama (”even more so”) regarding Jewish blogging.  So when I read that Israel would be hosting a conference for Jewish blogging my interest was piqued.  But as soon as I began reading, my interest turned to horror (or something approximating it).

One of the most entertaining parts of writing this blog is bringing my readers unintentionally hilarious bits of Jewish or Israeli life, and this one will tickle your (ironic) funny bone.  Before you begin, keep in mind that the conference sponsor, Nefesh B’Nefesh is the very-same American Jewish non-profit organization bringing new olim from America and other western countries and settling them, with the help of tax-deductible donations from American Jews, in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territory.  As the saying goes, your tax dollars hard at work.  Here, by the way, is NBN’s little promo for living the phat life in Maaleh Adumim, one of the most contentious settlement projects dividing the U.S. and Israel in the debate over a freeze.

[Silverstein quotes article here, which ends as follows:

Members of Nefesh B'Nefesh explained that the conference's aim is to "deepen collaboration and coordination between Jewish bloggers around the world in order to further join the interests of the Jewish people and the State of Israel."

The conference will host officials from the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Information who will attempt to recruit the bloggers for these goals.]

Now here I was ready to reserve my airline ticket until I read that last line. Am I prepared to be recruited by the PM or PR or Mossad or whoever, to become a hasbarist on behalf of the State of Israel? No thank you. I’ll leave that task to David Abitbol, Aussie Dave and the humus eaters of Nefesh B’Nefesh. I’d prefer to be able to look myself in the mirror and say I’m still my own man, not bought and paid for, whether through mammon or ideology by anyone or anything, except The (Jewish) Good as defined by yours truly.

Ahh, dear. Still bitter and twisted after all these years.

Incidentally, this is what Silverstein sees when he looks at himself in the mirror.

As Yoda would say, if had to look at that in the mirror every day, also be bitter and twisted, you would.  Yes, hmmm.

More than 200 Jewish bloggers, most of them immigrants from North America, attended the First International Jewish Bloggers Convention in Jerusalem this past Wednesday. Attendees seemed as much if not more interested in meeting fellow bloggers than in panel discussions dedicated to the agenda of taking Jewish blogging to the next level. “Everybody knew already how to get traffic, so there was nothing new,” said German-born Miriam Woelke, publisher of several blogs about Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox communities in Israel.

“It’s kind of nice to see faces of people that I only read online,” David Abitbol, one of the panelists and founder of Jewlicious, told Haaretz. The anonymous author of Chardal, who moved from Los Angeles to Yad Binyamin last year, said that putting faces to names was indeed his main reason for attending the conference. “I have conversations with these people all the time, but they are faceless people. It’s nice to have a normal conversation.”

While all blogs represented at the conference dealt in some way or another with life in Israel, the spectrum ranged from immigration through carrying guns in Israel to discussions of Jewish law, board games and interior design. Another 1,300 bloggers followed a live Web cast of the event on their computer screens.

The keynote event of the half-day conference, which was organized by the pro-immigration group Nefesh B’Nefesh, was a speech by former prime minister and current opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, which touched on his campaign more than blogging. The Foreign Ministry also made a presentation on branding Israel in a better way.

Nefesh B’Nefesh’s Danny Oberman announced the launch of a new Web 2.0 project called My Aliyah Idea, where users are encouraged to post and discuss ways to increase and improve immigration to Israel. While some bloggers said they write for purely recreational and not for any political reasons, many attendees and panelists were exploring ways in which their efforts could help the Jewish state.

“The blogosphere gives everyone a voice and there’s lots of great hasbara [public relations] we can do at a grassroots level,” said Texas-born Benji Lovitt, a 33-year-old comedian and author of What War Zone???, a blog that takes a humorous look on everyday life in Israel. “My approach is to try to show that Israel is more than you see on CNN. It’s actually not the scary, depressing place you think it might be but it’s a place of vibrancy and fun and blogging is a way to spread the word about that.”

I guess my Separated at Birth threat worked wonders.

• For me, the highlight of the evening was meeting the various bloggers present, which invariably turned out to be a gigantic game of Jewish geography. Included was the wife of an ex-teacher of mine, two Aussies with whom I attended seminary, and a friend of my wife. I also met a number of bloggers with whom I have online discussions.
• None of the anonymous bloggers I met for the first time in person conformed to the image of them I had in my head.
• Only after the conference did I realize how many bloggers there I did not meet.
• The journalist of the infamous (dishonest) Ha’aretz article was there, wearing a skullcap. In other words, looking like his own worst nightmare – all right wing and religious. He also happens to bear a striking similarity to an ex-child star of a cheesy 90’s American sitcom that sounds like Raved by the Hell. I had my picture taken with him, so I could possibly then publish a Separated at Birth post. But that could be unethical – like his article.
• I wonder how he’ll portray the conference in his next article, given that the panel discussions indicated the diversity of religious beliefs and political views (although the vast majority of participants were identifiably religious).
• You could tell it was a Jewish conference by the fact most of the bloggers walking in made a beeline for the buffet table. That, and the fact most participants looked all right wing and religious (I know, I am milking it for all it’s worth)
• While Bibi is a great speaker, and I agree with much of what he says, I took exception to the fact that his speech seemed to be more a campaign speech than anything else. He was also more about telling the bloggers in attendance how to accomplish effective Habara than listening to them.

I reproduce the below with full permission of the sender:

…until the day before the announcement Dov Bear was supposed to be on the flight. He is hardly RW or establishment. But he had to back out at the last minute – he even blogged about it. Meryl Yourish was invited on the flight, but she too had to back out at the end. It would be very tough to call her religious. There were a few more last minute back-outs like that. We were in contact with the bloggers for weeks in advance. There’s nothing I can do about people backing out at the last minute, but the flight list was quite inclusive – except that there were no “anti religious” or “anti Israel” bloggers considered (as I surmised – ed). We wanted bloggers who were inclusive, not divisive to participate in active roles. I think that’s fair. Perhaps next year, when we do this in an expanded forum we will have a track for those kinds of discussions.

As for the panels, the first panel is for bloggers who have garnered large audiences to discuss how they did it and pass on those tips. The primary criteria was blog size and influence. We weren’t looking at politics, gender, or religiosity. Just numbers and that is what resulted. Again, Yourish, for instance, would have been on the list if she was able to make it (and told us she will join us next year). (And no one here even suspected CK was religious until he told us). I wasn’t going to put on token bloggers who didn’t have the numbers.

Did I miss anyone? Quite possibly. Perhaps they’ll get to speak in one of the available slots next year.

As for the 2nd panel, that is about writing positive about Israel from different perspectives, and I’d say we have a great and diverse roundup there. And I see nothing wrong about the panelists being positive. You don’t have to be “anti” to have a differing opinion. Just some nice people with popular blogs that have some very differing (and even opposing) political and religious outlooks and perspectives.

NBN has an agenda, and that is promoting Aliyah, and that is why they are laying out the money. It is quite within their rights to require that the bloggers I selected be ones that are not anti-religious, not anti-Aliyah, and not anti-Israel (and that doesn’t just mean anti-Settler)

And “despite” all those restrictions, we have LW and non-religious bloggers as active participants (and not just as guests) and as Benji showed, taking front-line roles. You can have valid differing opinions without being hate-filled and anti. But if you are full of hate, you can’t understand that.

As for our guests, we have bloggers from every extreme (including the anti) coming.

How’s that for a bit of research?

Update: David reveals the real deceit in this story:

IMHO, the ‘journalist’ who wrote the hatchet job piece acted unethically on several levels, not the least of which was not revealing 100% verifiable facts (to which I directed him) about the actual statistical make-up of the convention’s panelists that would have turned his story into a non-story.

Meanwhile, you can see Benji here being all right-wing and religious.

A number of bloggers are complaining that the conference is slanted in favor of Orthodox bloggers with right-wing political leanings. I assume they base this on the list of attendees and panelists, which does seem to have a large proportion of such bloggers.

But here’s the deal. Anyone can register, and the panelists were chosen mainly on the basis of traffic and influence. And given that Nefesh B’Nefesh’s agenda is to promote aliyah (immigration to Israel), they have chosen pro-Israel bloggers, and probably tried to steer clear of controversial Jewish bloggers, who’s agenda includes bashing their fellow Jews.

I am particularly disappointed in the attitude of fellow anglo-Israel blogger Lisa Goldman, who claims no interest in the conference since she’s “more interested in the complexities of Israeli life than in blogging about aliyah-related themes,” and “would have preferred a conference for Israeli bloggers where Arabs could participate.” She also throws in the “politically slanted” argument. Besides the apparent condescension, Lisa also claims she doesn’t “like agenda blogging.” Sorry, Lisa, but I am calling BS on that. What you do is agenda blogging (your agenda being to promote Arab-Israeli dialog). What you meant is you “don’t like blogging for an agenda that does not fit mine.”

I have to also laugh at the Ha’aretz article’s mention of the blog Failed Messiah:

Although Failed Messiah was a finalist in the 2007 Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards and has been quoted in newspapers ranging from The Wall Street Journal to Haaretz and The Forward, Rosenberg was not contacted by Nefesh B’Nefesh about the conference.

Firstly, given I founded the Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards, I am qualified to say they are meaningless in terms of the “worth” of a blog. (I always love it when blogs invoke their performance in the JIBs as proof of their blogging credentials). Secondly, the argument that this anti-Judaism blogger should have been contacted by Nefesh B’Nefesh about the pro-aliyah blogger conference – because he has been cited by the mainstream media a few times – is ridiculous beyond belief.

Blogging opens up a lot of doors for a lot of people. But on the downside, it can also unleash people’s untamed egos. To the bloggers who believe they should have been invited to the conference (instead of registering like us common folk) or should have been invited to be a panelist, I say get over yourselves. And if you don’t like it, how about getting off your posterior and organizing a conference of your own. Perhaps the First International [Name of Your Blog] Admirers Convention?

Update: Check out Jameel’s post What is a JBlogger?