Jews in the D Jews in the Digital Age
JewishLIVE, 24/7 Festival of Digital Judaism New website fills void during the quarantine.
T
he COVID-19 pandemic has made us feel physically distant to each other. We cannot congregate at our synagogues, community centers or summer Rabbi Jason camps. However, Miller the Jewish comContributing Writer munity has not shifted away from community during the quarantine. Rather, we have been brought together virtually thanks to the Internet and streaming video conferencing. Three cutting-edge Jewish visionaries saw this 21st-century phenomenon as a prime opportunity to launch a website that’s a “one-stop shop” for those interested in plugging in and learning or praying with a community of Jews anywhere
Dan Libenson
Lex Rofeberg
in the country. Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg of the “Judaism Unbound” podcast linked up with Apryl Stern of the Institute of the Next Jewish Future to create jewishLIVE.org, which is a project of INJF with funding from the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah. The three out-of-the-box thinkers saw in early March that Jewish events were suddenly being canceled due to
Apryl Stern
the coronavirus pandemic. They wondered how they could help fill the void of in-person Jewish events taking place, like conferences, synagogue services, Jewish musical concerts and lectures. These in-person events would have to migrate to the digital landscape, they realized. In an effort to curb the sense of loneliness and social isolation they sensed the quarantine would create for
many, they wanted to create a website that would serve as a portal to all sorts of learning, prayer and entertainment. The website, jewishLIVE.org, has a schedule of live streaming experiences broken out into categories like Soul Stage, Earth Stage, Mind Stage, Sensory Stage, Kids Stage and Music Stage. Imagine a fullscale Jewish culture festival taking place seven days a week and being able to choose your engagement point each hour of every day. Libenson, Rofeberg and Stern also recognized that everyone staying home and becoming more accustomed to Zoom conferences created a natural opportunity for many Jews, and non-Jews, to connect to Jewish experiences they might have been intimidated to join in person. continued on page 32 JUNE 11 • 2020
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