A few months ago, Israel Forum kindly agreed to run this year’s JIB awards, due to my inability and lack of desire to be involved this year. And I want to state for the record, I think they have tried their best to make it work. It is a thankless job, especially when you are subject to nasty and unfair criticism, as I believe my friends at Israel Forum have been.
Having said that, I cannot pretend to be pleased with the format of the awards. I voiced my displeasure at the concept of the voting being based solely on the JBlogCentral voting, since I believe this voting system is being abused (as Bagelblogger noted a few weeks ago).
And there are other issues – such as the fact that entries in the category Best Post/Series are not reflective of the category, but are merely pointing to the blog itself.
But for me, the main problem is that the lack of publicity, and the rushed nature of proceedings, have compromised the very aim of the JIBs – namely to promote Jewish, Israeli, and pro-Israel blogs to the general public.
Consequently, I have requested that the name JIBs be dropped from these awards. The JIBs will be back soon, true to their traditional format.
Again, let me stress that I think Israel Forum has tried very hard to make this work, admittedly with very little in the way of assistance from me, and with much in the way of undeserved criticism (a major reason why I gave up running the JIBs). Therefore, I ask that you fully support these awards. Just don’t call them the JIBs.
Update: Israel Forum have graciously changed the name of their awards to the People’s Choice Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards.
