Jewish on the WELL

Jewish. It's not just a religion, an ethnic group, a state of mind, a rich cultural heritage, an amazing language . . . it's also a conference. The Jewish conference is a place to explore ever ything about being Jewish, or what being Jewish is becoming as we pass the middle of the 58th century. There is a resource library containing articles of Jewish interest, information about organizations nationally, internationally, or in the Bay Area, an d a small software library. Discussions range from cooking to the the peace process (or lack thereof), from the online Talmud study group to the what's happening in the Jewish renewal movement, from cultural Judaism to orthodoxy, from timely news to the frivolous. It need only be "Jewish" to be of interest. . . and no, you don't even have to be Jewish--you just need to join the WELL and ...

go jewish.

Your current hosts are David Julian Gray (djg) and Ruth Bernstein (ruthb). Other people who have hosted Jewish include Maurice Weitman and Ari Davidow (co-founders), David Cooper, Ruth Neal, Linda Morgan, and Sarah E. Goodman.

Note: The WELL's Jewish conference is a service of the WELL, and is only available to WELL subscribers. Check out the main WELL pages for more information.

The Jewish conference was also co-founded, and co-hosted by Tamar Kaufman, journalist, feminist, and blacksmith extraordinaire, who passed away in October 1994, Cheshvan 5755. This page is dedicated to her memory, and also in the knowledge that she is still somewhere out there in cyberspace, and should be reporting back shortly.

The WELL is a very heimish part of the universe, but it's not the whole kugel. (Nor is the page the WELL--it's a mere representation of some aspects of the WELL's Jewish conference.) Here is an idiosyncratic listing of some other places, people, and fun Jewish online resources:

• Abbe Don (abbe) is our favorite Jewish digital storyteller. Read No Soup, Just Matzo Balls and then share your own family stories with her virtual Bubbe at Bubbe's Back Porch.
• Jackie Weitman, our own jaxers, finally has a very fun web page up in which she is posting book reviews and writings around the subjects of Jewish Buddhists (as I think I heard someone on the radio say, today, Buddha wasn't Jewish, but he would have made a good Jew) and Jewish lesbian issues. The page is called Sputnik Lounge. 9 Apr 00.
• Conference participant Ellis Weinberger (ellisaw) is guiding a project with the Cairo Geniza manuscripts at Cambridge, England, to make the manuscripts viewable online. You can take a look at the first few mate rials online, as well as a searchable database of manuscript fragments, at http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/GOLD. Ellis' Masters Thesis, on Privacy, Databases, and Jewish Law, is also available online.

• Our favorite theatre group is the San Francisco-based A Traveling Jewish Theatre. Explore their pages and you'll start to see why. Send them e-mail and let them know where you heard about them--info@atjt.com
• Reporter and website developer Larry Yudelson (yudel) is well-known to all participants in the Jewish conference. He has created a presence to discuss Israeli music called Radio Hazak. Have fun!
• Ari Davidow's (ari) Klezmer Shack is the largest collection of information, sound clips, links, and reviews of klezmer, yiddish, and whatever else strikes his fancy. Now there are even tie-ins to new conferencing systems and discussion areas. Oh, right, that's me--the same person who maintains this conference page for the WELL's Jewish conference.

• The best online reference to Jewish resources is Andy Tannenbaum's, Judaism and Jewish Resources Page
• Hey, the Northern California Jewish Bulletin is online. There are articles, personals, the Resource guide, calendars, and everything else.

• All the time, people ask us, how do I find a yahrzeit date? How do I find out when i was Bar Mitzvahed? If it's a matter of converting between Hebrew and English dates, or getting a Hebrew month or year calendar, consult The OU Calendar pages. Try it, you won't believe how useful this is.

• The Shamash project's home page has links to just about everywhere else in Jewish Cyberspace.

• Bridges, "a journal for Jewish feminists and our friends" is a lovely Jewish feminist quarterly which is also a mailing list and now has a web page. It offers a wonderful diversity of women's voices.
• The JACS organization, Jews in Recovery from Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, has opened a web site and mailing list for jews and their families whose lives have been affected by alcoholism and drug abuse.
• Thank heaven for little girls is an article about rituals to welcome baby girls into Judaism, parallel to the circumcision ceremony for boys. The ceremony is often called "brit bat," or "simchat bat." (And no, this page is not going to address the question of circumcision--for that you need to join the WELL and come into the Jewish conference ready to talk and to listen.) Link suggested by conference member Abbe Don.