Mazal Tov! This is the 4000th Jewlicious post after a little over 4 years. In that time, we’ve inspired 56,666 approved comments, held 4 Jewlicious Festivals, run 10 Jewlicious Taglit-Birthright Israel trips, sponsored and co-sponsored countless events in the US and Israel, been interviewed dozens of times by media outlets large and small and 125,937 Web pages currently link back to us. We’ve served 264 banner ads, 134,821,018 times. These banner ads were paid for by a wide variety of businesses and organizations from the New Israel Fund, to JDub Records; from Aish Hatorah to American Apparel.

While Jewish communal organizations scramble to advertise with us, wishing to access our broad demographic, in the more than 4 years of our existence, the number of grants we’ve received (not including co-sponsorship of our Festivals) total exactly zero. To be fair, we started applying a little over 2 years ago, we’ve been finalists and we were even selected last year as part of the Slingshot 50, but we’ve never received any organizational funding as a result. As one Director stated “it’s tough to understand Jewlicious from afar.”

Yeah, I guess that’s true. The fact is that we kind of enjoy our independence – it’s what gives us our street cred I suppose. I can’t help chuckling on an almost daily basis when we are criticized for being both right wing and left wing, both extremely religious and unremittingly secular. At our Festivals and events you’ll see young Jews of every orientation and denomination – where else can you observe Lesbian eco-activists interacting with right-wing Ultra Orthodox Jews? Our blog is similarly made up of a dizzying variety of yiddles ranging in age from 19 to 45, ranging in identities from atheist to Hassidic, united solely by an abiding interest in Judaism in all its manifestations.

Now I know I was recently the subject of a Jerusalem Post article that much to my embarrassment called me Mr. J-Blog. Truly, nothing could be further from the truth. Jewlicious owes its success to a number of things – a healthy and robust Jewish blogging community that we are but a small part of. I’m no Al Gore. He didn’t invent the Internet and I sure as heck am NOT Mr. J-Blog.

But more importantly, Jewlicious owes its success to my fellow bloggers, now numbering over a dozen – you guy are the best! In particular, I owe a big debt of gratitude for the hard work put in by TheMiddle, Grand Muffti, EstherK and Rabbi Yonah who have been with us from the beginning. One of the things that makes Jewlicious unique is that we’re not just a blog – we’re out there in the real world and none of that would have happened without Rabbi Yonah Bookstein and Rachel Bookstein – the driving forces behind the Jewlicious Festival. I am humbled in your presence and grateful to be associated with you all in any way shape or form.

Finally, I’d like to thank our countless visitors. Every time you read our articles or leave a comment – even when you disagree with us, you inspire us to continue cranking out whatever it is we crank out. Jewlicious is about pride, conversation and unity. I know these are concepts that are “tough to understand from afar” but those of you who are close to us know exactly what they mean. Those of you who don’t understand, well…

What does the future hold for Jewlicious? I don’t know. We’re going multilingual so we can spread Jewlicious love to all corners of the Jewish globe. We have a Russian version of Jewlicious up and running and we’re planning a French one too (any volunteers? I mean voulez-vous blogger avec moi ce soir?). We have applied for grants in the hopes of professionalizing the “organization” as it were. The hope is to assure it’s continuity and to meet the demand for more activities while still remaining that “lovable garage band you hope never makes it.” Luckily the folks behind Jewlicious are a passionate lot, so despite our total uselessness in grant writing, I suspect we’ll be around for a while yet. We’ll see. In any case, thanks bunches.

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About the author

ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

7 Comments

  • We are all grateful for the significant contribution you guys have made, collectively and individually, to our Jewish world.

    And this is just the beginning.

  • I started applying for funding for the festival from National foundations starting in winter of 2005. At that time, the Festival was a wild idea that many people were skeptical about – until they got there and saw what we were doing.

    We had the good fortune of the support of the The Andrea And Charles Bronfman Philanthropies in 2007 and the Schusterman Family Foundation in 2008.

    Without the continued support of local philanthropies, The Alpert, Alevy and Breslauer families, there would be no Festival.

    Our attempts to get funding to make this more than a volunteer organization have until today been unsuccessful – but I am not disheartened in the slightest.

    In this new year of Jewish love, 5769, let us hope that our vision and ideas will get funding so that we can take Jewlicious to the next level.

  • Here’s hoping that Jewlicious is able to inspire positive, constructive and loving discussion on Jewish issues well into the future, as long as there are readers who make the work all worth it…

    One of the reasons that I’m able to make this newest move in my life is largely due to my involvement in the Jewlicious Festival and the friends/community I’ve encountered there. Looking forward to seeing how J5 turns out…

    Shanah tovah to all.

  • It’s been a blast, ck. Definitely a life-enriching experience, even for those of us with rich lives. Heck, even for those of us who participate anonymously.

  • Congratulations Jewlicious! Surely what has been done in this blog and its many noodly appendages has made an impact on Jewish pop culture for the past four years. Jewlicious is a truly radical experience in the most traditional of Jewish senses. You never know what you’re going to find here or at the fest. It’s been a lot of fun and I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with in the future.