Jew Bloggers

 

I know there’s all kinds of chatter on the internets about Nefesh B’Nefesh’s First International Jewish Bloggers Conference (which, if you are a Jewish blogger you should register for) – but it seems that last Sunday in New York, we had our own First First International Jewish Bloggers Convention over at David Kelsey‘s place at that other capital of the Jewish people – the Upper West Side of New York City.

Our Jewish Bloggers Convention, mindful of the concerns voiced by some bloggers and their print media cronies, was truly diverse and international in scope. From left to right we see Tanya from the Former Soviet Union who writes for Jewlicious.ru, our own Grand Muffti who is Canadian, Lori who is Persian, David Kelsey our American host and me – in all the way from Israel.

Some of the topics discussed by our panelists included “Taking JBlogging to the next level:
Increasing your readership, reach and influence – Poignant Prose vs. Pictures of Hot Babes,” “Developments in Social Marketing Techniques: I blog in the nude” and the very lively “Hey Lana, want another Arak Appletini?”

Tanya, Lori and I had been fasting all day for Tisha B’Av and so of course, while we had to endure ridicule from Muffti and Kelsey, we took comfort in the knowledge that we had allowed a diversity of opinion to flourish.

But in all seriousness… do read that Haaretz article about Nefesh B’Nefesh’s JBlogger Conference. It describes the Conference as “one-sided and agenda-driven” but fails to mention that for the most part, the blogger panels will be discussing issues related to blogging. Lisa from On The Face said that “I’m more interested in the complexities of Israeli life than in blogging about aliyah-related themes” – which is fair, while Shmaryah Rosenberg from Failed Messiah stated that “At first glance, the conference seems stacked in favor of Orthodox bloggers with right-wing political leanings.” Haaretz also took NBN to task for not contacting Rosenberg who as a finalist in the 2007 Jewish Israel Blog Awards ought to have been contacted for such an august gathering – along with the 437 other finalists in the JIB Awards…

I don’t understand the fuss. For me this Bloggers Convention is about meeting fellow bloggers and having fun for a few hours – like we did at our Bloggers Convention (despite David Kelsey’s kvetchy presence). So uh… stay tuned for more coming up as we introduce you to a couple prospective new immigrants…

Follow me

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.

65 Comments

  • Muffti would go to more of these things if there was always this much alcohol and he could reliably end up between two hotties. Not to mention Mastermind!

  • Ezzie: On Shabbos we don’t discuss blogging. You’d know this if you were Frum From Birth like David Kelsey and I.

  • Wait, I’m not FFB? Since when?*

    Plus, I certainly hope that when y’all chill you aren’t discussing blogging – I mean, really, what’s the point in that!?

    * Note: I actually am FFB, not that it makes a difference. But my mom and bro-in-law aren’t, so maybe those are strikes against us.

  • And I’m not FFB. I am ben niddah, like the vast majority of my American Jewish brothers and sisters.

  • Sorry for the error there Ezzie. Your participation in the Beyond BT Shabbaton caused a bit of confusion. As for Muffti’s “type” what does that mean? Muffti has only one requirement – a pulse. Exceedingly bad taste in men helps too, but that’s nothing a ton of alcohol couldn’t fix. As for DKs Ben Niddah assertion, I think that just applies to Ashkenazim. Most of our Sephardic wimmins still go to the mikveh. They may wear hot pants, but they still go.

  • The question rather is whether Muffti prefers shaved or unshaved women as according to FFB friends and Russian beauticians in Brooklyn, FFB women prefer to be unshaved / unwaxed / untrimmed from the knee up.

  • Esther! You were on your way to New Hampshire. Otherwise you would have been our #1 choice for moderator. We tried to get together earlier but a fun blogger meetup on tisha b’av? Not such a good idea.

  • Does…does anyone want to hear a really, really disgusting anecdote I heard about chassidic women?

    Ezzie?

  • Awwwww, c’mon, ck, Muffti isn’t delicate.

    Esther, I think the lads owe us big time for neglecting our social needs. Apart from Lori and Kelsey of course; those are sweethearts.

  • I believe that might be a hottie w/ her arm around you Mufti. Mufti has a very cute boyish look to him in that picture.

  • Funny froylein, I heard the exact thing about German woman, but the neglect everything from the ankles up.

    HOT!

  • Au contraire, yoni, the selection of body grooming items is even way larger here than over there, so that’s just another odd prejudice that has been around for a while while my statement was based on the reports by actual frumies and beauticians treating them.

  • That’s what I like about Sephardim. Some of them might drive to shul on Shabbes, but by G-d, if they do, they drive to an Orthodox shul.

    It’s only the Ashkenazim who had to invent Reform/Conservative/Recostructionist/Egalitarian to assuage their consciences about their decision not to be shomer mitzvot.

    The Sephardic attitude is way healthier. Or more honest, at least.
    Normal, anyway.

    Even if they don’t keep the mitzvot 100% (who does?), they don’t insist that their rabbis come down to their level just to make them feel OK about what they’re doing.

  • CK – Assumed as much; the Shabbaton is a good mix of both. We’re co-hosting partly to show that the Shabbaton isn’t just for BTs or people of a certain type, partly to help draw younger people as well, etc.

    And these women do have exceedingly good taste, so I still think they’re not for Muffti. 🙂

    DK – Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll pass.

  • Froy,

    well that is disappointing then…… some men prefer a beast of a women…….

  • ck-

    good to know you’ve adopted froyo.

    is that lori, that chick who celebrated her b-day at kum kum 3? and the ocean was on fire from the plethora of Candles In a Bottle?

    froyo – how was your trip?

    muffti – what about Frenemies?

  • aaron,

    Indeed it is me. When are you coming to New York for a night of board games, and chokingly strong mixed drinks?

  • Froylein, I’m confused because Froylein is not your real name but an assumed moniker. Since it’s just a nickname, why do you care if somebody butchers it?

  • If the conference organizers had any sense of decency, I would have been invited to speak. But I have no desire to attend their Zionist-racist blog conference anyway.

  • Heh Tyrone. We would probably have shot you and got drunk on a combination of Arak and your blood.

    😉

  • Middle, I just want to keep our friends from turning into hip-hoppers.

    Ant to Yoni it’s “Ms Froylein” anyway.

  • Ms. Froylein is the Lou Salome of the blogosphere. (which makes Muffti Nietzsche, and yours truly, Paul Ree.)

    froylein, I’m sure this photo means nothing and that Muffti is truly still very, very interested, longs for your soul, is warm for your form etc. He probably told those two women he was gay to make them comfortable with burrowing into him for the camera.

  • He’s perfectly prepared to get metaphysical if that’s what it takes to get… uh….

  • Then again, I’m not quite as promiscuous as Mme Salome nor do I know any people of such outstanding fame as she did, so I’m not quite sure the analogy stands well the way it does. We should ask ck though to photoshop a Nitzschean moustache onto Muffti’s likeness to see whether this atheist could pull off that role.

  • Well, we’d have to add you with a whip, too, n’est-ce pas?

  • Ephraim, it’s the same (many Greek loanwords are the same or similar), but it would rather be an example of pleonasm (Latin) respectively tautology (Greek).

    A whip? Hmmm, where have I put mine…

  • Yeah, I looked it up on Babelfish The only difference is you guys write it with a capital “O” for some reason.

    But seriously. “Ms. Froylein?”

    On a related topic, is it true that the use of “Frau” is sort of verboten in Germany now?

  • http://www.dict.cc is a pretty good German-English / English-German dictionary; it also features pronunciation recordings. Nouns get capitalized in German.

    That’ll be Ms [no full stop in British English if the last letter of the abbreviation is the same as the last letter of the written-out word] Froylein to Yoni, Ephraim, you may still call me froylein.

    “Frau” is a perfectly fine way to address women that are or you think might be adults, in spoken German though it needs to collocate with the family name. If you don’t know the family name, you’ll just avoid using it and use “Sie / Ihrer / Ihnen” instead. Service people might use “die Dame” (the lady) in combination with the third person singular, but it might be perceived as mockery or patronizing coming from a non-service person. You just don’t use “Fräulein” anymore as feminists of the 1970s/80s variety were successful with their claim that it was sexist to be able to see a woman’s marital status from her title. Which is pretty absurd as married German women generally wear wedding bands unless at a job where they may not wear one during work, e.g. nurses. Widows usually wear both wedding bands on their ringfinger, sometimes have their late hubby’s set with some stone. In the Rhineland though, we use “Fräulein” to admonish little girls or to address old ladies.

  • Oh, so it was “Fraulein” that was banned, not “Frau”? Guess I had it backwards.

    How do you get the umlaut?

    Also, on a feminism question: is it really true that Swedish feminists seriously believe that a man peeing standing up is a form of male aggression and that men should be made to pee sitting down? I had heard this before, but I assumed it was a parody a la “The Onion”. But I read recently that it was actually meant seriously. Not sure what to believe.

    I read that calling a man a “sitspinkler” in German is an insult to his masculinity, tantamount to calling him a girl. That’s such a cool insult that I think I’ll adopt it.

  • That might well be true re: the Swedish feminists; those are said to be rather, uhmmm, pushy. Analogously, some German feminist once demanded that members of parliament should be banned from wearing ties as ties were penis symbols, thus symbols of male domination.

    You get the Umlauts, if you don’t have your PC and keyboard set to German as default, by going into your language settings and adding German as an additional language. A little button will appear on the bottom of the screen, where you can pick between the languages. In the German mode, the keyboard will react like a German one. You could also change your keyboard setting and define the Umlauts as second or third functions of other keys.

    You can use Sitzpinkler, Warmduscher (warm shower taker), Schattenparker (in-the-shadow car parker) etc.

  • I’m afraid to ask what Warmduscher and Schattenparker are supposed to mean.

  • If peeing sitting down lands me a Swedish woman, feminist or no, it’s a small price to pay.

  • Yes, I can quite see that, but to what, precisely, does the “warm shower” refer (I can guess) and who is parking whose car in whose shadow?

    Tom, if a woman hates your penis so much that she’s not willing to let you use it to pee standing up, the chances she’s going to let you do anything else with it are pretty low.

    Swedish or not, no woman is worth that much.

    Unless, of course, you’re into being ordered around.

  • It refers to real men showering cold and real men not being afraid of parking their car in the midday sun.

    As far as I’m concerned, all that matters is whether the toilet seat is clean. But then again, I’m not Swedish.

  • Oh.

    That’s it? No sexual innuendos or double entendres?

    Damn.

  • Froylein:
    Looks like the crowd here is more interested in other things than dishes… I guess you have some ideas for further posts in the series…

  • How did this go from our ground breaking First First Jewish Bloggers Convention to Froylein’s dishes??

  • ‘Savagely hunky’? Muffti likes that one, even if said in jest. Thanks Lori, you smoldering sexpot. In any case, Muffti has never employed faux-homosexuality to get women to burrow into him. Whatever nefarious techniques you employ in the pursuit of the fairer sex, Morrissey, kindly keep from projecting them onto Muffti.

  • Yeah, Muffti. I wouldn’t take any advice on how to cherechez la femme from some guy who is so desparate he’s willing to let the chick tell him how to pee just in the hopes he might get some.

  • Seriously. Agreed.

    ck, can you tell us more about this convention? make any conclusions you want to share? i am, in all jest and seriousness, interested to know how to promote one of these blog things. I started a new one for us kids at advertising school.

    adkidsdiet.wordpress.com

    it sucks, though, as of now.

    and fro…i call you that because i love frozen yogurt, and thus, i love you too.

    for everyone else, keep talking. lori ill be in nyc, at some point, once the weather decides to stop sucking.

    happy shabbat to y’all.