Jewish New Media Innovation Fund

March 12th, 2013

Haggadot.com Launches a Campaign for Passover to Create Crowd-Sourced Haggadah

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HAGGADOT.COM LAUNCHES A CAMPAIGN FOR PASSOVER TO CREATE CROWD-SOURCED HAGGADAH

The Neverending Haggadah is a partnership with Schusterman Philanthropic Network to encourage people to personalize their Seders

Los Angeles, CA—March 12, 2013 – Every year, Jews around the world gather at the Seder table to re-tell the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. While some still reach for the same standard Maxwell House Haggadah, increasingly people are personalizing their Seders by developing their own custom creations. At the forefront of this movement is Haggadot.com, an online platform that allows people to curate and publish haggadahs.

This year, Haggadot.com has joined forces with the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network to crowd-source a modern-day haggadah using Haggadot.com’s first-of-its-kind group collaboration tool. Over the next two weeks, up until the first night of Passover on March 25, individuals, groups and organizations are invited to contribute content to and download The Neverending Haggadah. Learn more here.

“Our group collaboration tool is a new feature on Haggadot.com that we are excited to share just in time for Passover,” says Eileen Levinson, an artist who founded Haggadot.com in 2011. “It allows multiple users to subscribe and contribute to one collaborative haggadah. To pilot this new technology, we asked the Schusterman team to help us reach out to their partners, friends and allies. We look forward to seeing the conversation that unfolds as people around the world contribute to The Neverending Haggadah.”

On March 13, at 1:00 pm EST, Haggadot.com and Schusterman will host a free webinar for users who want to learn how to host a more interactive Seder by curating their own haggadahs. For more information and to register for the webinar, click here.

Currently Haggadot.com has more than 230 contributors who have added a total of 1,500 pieces of content.

Haggadot.com works like an interactive scrapbook. Users can login, upload personalized texts, graphics and audio and video content, and mix and match pieces from other contributors to create a standard 15-part Haggadah that fits their unique interests. Haggadot.com’s intuitive user interface and design makes the process simple.

In addition to essays, commentary and poetry, Haggadot.com offers artwork, music and multimedia content. Among the clips on Haggadot.com, users will find:

Passover yoga poses co-existing with selections from a traditional haggadah from the 1500s;
Options for Ashkenazi and Sephardi families that include both traditions in one haggadah;
A haggadah with the central theme of the Four Children, combining artwork, a game, a ballad and a lecture by Rabbi Benjamin Englander; and
A haggadah featuring poetry by A. E. Housman, Langston Hughes and Yehuda Amichai’s ruminations on the Seder’s popular concluding song, “Chad Gadya” (One Goat).

Haggadot.com contains material in many languages including English, Hebrew, Italian, German, Yiddish and Ladino.

Seed funding for Haggadot.com was provided by the ROI Community, a member of the Schusterman Philanthropic Network, and the Natan Fund. Haggadot.com was also among the nine recipients selected for the pilot Jewish New Media Innovation Fund, a partnership between the Schusterman Foundation, Righteous Persons Foundation and Jim Joseph Foundation.

“Innovative initiatives like Haggadot.com ensure that Jews all over the world are more than passive participants in our rich heritage and traditions,” says Lynn Schusterman, Co-chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network. “They enable us to take an active role in shaping our personal Jewish journeys.”

As part of its broader efforts to strengthen the Jewish future, the Schusterman Philanthropic Network provides young Jews with opportunities to create meaningful Jewish experiences and communities in their own image. This initiative is part of Schusterman’s celebration of 25 years of working to empower young people to create change for themselves, in the Jewish community and across the broader world.

Learn more and contribute to The Neverending Haggadah here.

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About Haggadot.com:

Haggadot.com invites Jews of all backgrounds to find their place in the Passover conversation through the seder’s central text, the haggadah. Users can upload, exchange and personalize haggadot gaining simultaneous access to classical texts and contemporary interpretations from their peers, creating more meaningful Passover seders and connective Jewish experiences. www.haggadot.com

About the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network:

The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network (CLSPN) is a global enterprise that supports and creates innovative initiatives for the purpose of igniting the passion and unleashing the power in young people to create positive change for themselves, in the Jewish community and across the broader world. CLSPN includes the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Schusterman Foundation-Israel, ROI Community and REALITY.

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March 11th, 2013

Holiday: The Neverending Haggadah

Every Passover, Jews around the world gather at the Seder table to re-tell one of the greatest stories ever: the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. As much as we love tradition, this year we are giving the Seder ritual a new twist—and we want you to join us!

So, how will this Passover be different from all other Passovers?

Because we are forgoing ye olde faithful Maxwell House Haggadah! We are working with our friends at Haggadot.com to pilot their new group collaboration tool to create an online (and downloadable) crowd-sourced Haggadah. Are you up to the challenge for collectively creating a never-ending Haggadah? This is your chance to share content that will add color and depth to another Seder and also to find content that will make your Seder more meaningful. It’s a Haggadah of reciprocity! Read More »

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March 29th, 2012

The Jewish New Media Innovation Fund: One Year Later

Cross-posted from eJewishPhilanthropy. This article is co-authored by Rachel Levin of the Righteous Persons Foundation and Josh Miller of the Jim Joseph Foundation.

Back in 2010, when Facebook had but a meager 300 million users and the concepts of Google Plus and Pinterest were not yet on the horizon, there was a desire bubbling up within the Jewish community to capitalize on the new media and technological innovations happening across so many facets of our lives.

How could we channel all of these new platforms to strengthen innovation within the Jewish community? How could these tools enable Jewish communities spread all over the world to reach, teach, learn, create and affiliate in unprecedented ways? Read More »

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March 29th, 2012

Innovating on Tradition: Reflections on the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund

Summary: Many organizations that serve our communities struggle to maintain working technology infrastructures, let alone to experiment and imagine how to achieve their missions in a digital world. Bridging this gap between media innovation and mission accomplishment was the core goal of the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund (the Fund), a pilot launched in 2010 by the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Righteous Persons Foundation, and the Schusterman Family Foundation.

The very act of establishing the Fund has already helped prompt conversations around technology and social innovation in organizations that may not have otherwise occurred. These conversations will only continue to grow and deepen as we watch and monitor the types of impact that these projects have on Jewish communities and individuals. The ultimate outcome of the JNMIF will rest as much on what the community learns from this experiment as it does on the results of the individual projects. In Innovating on Tradition: Reflections on the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund, we attempt to provide a foundation for spurring discussion about the experiment by reflecting on three key questions:

What is the state of new media innovation in the organized Jewish community?
How can the JNMIF process be improved?
What might come next?

Author: Lucy Bernholz and Conan Liu, Arabella Advisors

Download: Innovating on Tradition: Reflections on the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund

Read: Jewish New Media Innovation Fund: One Year Later

www.jewishnewmedia.org

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March 29th, 2012

Op-Ed: Innovating on Tradition: Reflections on the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund

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March 29th, 2012

The Jewish New Media Innovation Fund: One Year Later

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March 27th, 2011

Jewish New Media Innovation Fund Inaugurates Digital Projects

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March 25th, 2011

Lynn Talks Jewish New Media with the Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal recently covered the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund in its Donor of the Day column, which specifically focuses on the New York metro area. In it, Lynn talks about why we decide to join with the Righteous Persons and Jim Joseph foundations to create the Fund. You can learn more about the initiative and the 2011-2012 award recipients at www.jewishnewmedia.org.

“Putting the Torah into app form and translating Jewish liturgy into slang are just two of the projects being funded by the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund.

The fund is a joint collaboration of the Jim Joseph, Righteous Persons and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family foundations. Over $500,000 was recently awarded to nine projects, including funding of roughly $170,000 to four projects based in the New York area. This is the first year for the fund and its purpose is to support projects that use digital media to reach the under-40 audience and connect them to Jewish traditions.

“We believe it will help create new, innovative ways for young Jewish adults to explore their identities, connect with their peers and build strong communities,” says Lynn Schusterman, chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, one of the funders. “We also hope this initiative will result in the greater utilization and increased funding of new media tools and technologies by a wide range of Jewish organizations and individuals seeking to enhance, enrich and strengthen Jewish life.”

Read the rest on the Wall Street Journal website Read More »

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March 15th, 2011

VIDEO: Princess of Persia (A Purim Story)

On the Jewish holiday of Purim, we are actually commanded to be joyful and to engage in revelry. Our friends at G-dcast help us fulfill this mitzvah with their latest creation: a Purim tale that reminds us to “always have the courage to stand up for what you believe in.”

Sarah Lefton and the G-dcast crew are members of the ROI Community of Young Innovators and now a 2011-2012 Jewish New Media Innovation Fund award recipient for a project on which they will collaborate with Moishe House.