The General Assembly: In Photos!

The Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly has come to a close, and I think that I can sum up my experience in a few pictures. Stay tuned for more fun and updates!

Meeting of the minds! @sethacohen33, @benjilovitt, @daroff, @estherk, and @aimeeweiss.

Because I can't get enough of the HILARIOUS @benjilovitt. 

Amazing performance at the 2011 Gala by Silhouettes of America's Got Talent fame.

So mini Eminem there wanted to play Giant Jenga with @melschol and me at The 1Up (coolest bar ever). 

And then, in a photo-op, these guys RUINED it. Sigh. @datingdad, @eshanken, and @denverrelief. Grr.
(These are the guys who run E-3 Events in Denver, by the way.)

Oh, and it turns out this guy here is famous because he's a Ghost Hunter?
So I gawked with @thdpr!

An interesting talk by Howard Behar of Starbucks about being in the people business.  

And, of course, my GA experience wouldn't have been complete without GOBS of time with my good buddies @diwon and @ylove. You guys were amazing, over and over. Mad props for representing Jews!

The Golden Age? Maybe Not.

I love it when book publishers and publicists send me books to review. Absolutely love it. Especially in the summer when I actually have time to sit down with a tome and give a little attention to a real-life, paper-style, bound book and not something on my iPad or Nook. I've revived the whole "going to the library" thing that I used and abused when I lived in Denver and Connecticut, because when I'm under the pressure of "return this in two weeks OR ELSE," I'm more likely to actually read the book.

But this is a book someone sent me, and because I do have the time to review books, I thought I should get to it. So, I sat down with The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement: The Compendium of a Culture, a People, and Their Stunning Performance:  by Steven Pease over Shabbat, excited to see exactly what this offer had to offer regarding the sometimes seemingly unbalanced representation of Jews in positions of achievement.

Unfortunately, I wasn't entirely jazzed with the book. The introduction made me wonder if at some point Pease said something and someone accused him of being an antiSemite so he felt like he needed to defend his position of his respect and admiration of Jews. He gives a laundry list of details about how he knows gobs of Jews, his favorite joke came from a Jewish friend, how he worked with Jews. You know, it's like that excuse, "Oh, I can tell this racist joke because my best friend is black."

Sigh.

In the wrong hands, this book could be seriously bad news. It offers a laundry list (hence "compendium" in the title) of Jews and their achievements, from champion chess players to Nobel prize winners and everything in between. The lists and details on athletics were particularly interesting, if only because Jews seem to be wired for owning teams rather than playing on them. (Insert stereotype here.)

Listen, I get what Pease was trying to do: List and explain why Jews are so darn great at just about everything -- really tipping the scales in inventions, Nobel prize-winning, Hollywood, and so on -- except for sports. But this isn't the kind of book you sit down and read. It's the kind of book you reference on occasion when someone says, "Oh come on, there's no way Jews are that good at chess!" But when I said that this could be bad news in the wrong hands, it's because I feel like this is the kind of list that an antiSemite is just looking for to prove the "Jews run the world" argument. After all, if we're so darn good at achieving in certain fields, clearly we're going at it in a sneaky, Jewish kind of way.

Should you go out and buy this book? Probably not. However, if you like stats and you like to know who the major players in various categories of Jewish public history, then this book definitely is for you. And it's only $14.95 on Amazon, so if you can get past the "oh I know lots of Jews, so it's all good" stuff, then perhaps you'll get your money's worth.

Meeting Mayim Bialik: Yes, She's As Nice As You Think She Is

So ... she really liked my mini Sharpie!

When I was a kid, there were some shows that just stuck with me, and one of those shows was Blossom. In fact, for my fifth grade enrichment program project (which was about origami), I got dressed to the nines. That is, for my overweight fifth-grade self I got dressed to the nines. This means I was wearing a homemade black dress with small pink flowers on it, some fancy Mary Janes, and, of course, my Blossom-inspired hat. A photo will be coming -- never fear. Tuvia and I are heading to Nebraska at the end of the month, and there will be gobs of amazing photos of me for your viewing pleasure.

So you can imagine how delighted I was to find out that the one, the only Mayim Bialik of Blossom fame, and more recently of Big Bang Theory (one of my most favorite shows), was visiting my town, Teaneck! I signed up immediately for a pair of tickets for Tuvia and I, and after being rudely quickly shuffled to the event room at a large house in Teaneck that blew my mind, and with my camera at the ready, I was beyond jazzed to meet a childhood hero of mine. And, to think, that when I was a kid watching Blossom I wasn't Jewish, and I didn't even have Judaism on my mind, and all I could think was "Who names their kid Mayim? What does that even mean?"

The event was run by Jew in the City -- the amazing outreach site that is redesigning the public image of Orthodox Jews as you read this very blog post. I've been a fan of Jew in the City for eons, and if you're not, you should be. Mayim and the face behind Jew in the City, Allison Josephs, are Partners in Torah buddies, and that's how this amazing connection happened, and all to our benefit! Mayim talked about her background in Judaism, her life as a starlet, and how learning with Allison showed her the beauty in observance and doing things at your own pace.

From the first time I met Allison, I felt uber connected to her and her own story of growth in observance. After all, we both had existential crises when we were kids, so HaShem had some of the same work in mind for the both of us. Mayim talked about how Allison asked her: Why did HaShem make you famous? Why did he choose you to make famous?

That got me thinking: Why is this blog so well known? Why do people feel connected to me? What is it about my story, my words, my narrative, that other people find compelling enough to email a complete stranger? This is something I'm going to be thinking about. I've always felt that HaShem had a special plan for me, but I've been trying to really peg what that plan is. Maybe it's just the blog? It's reaching out and making the Jewish world a better place? Lighting a fire in all those dimmed neshamot out there?

Think about it. And, while you're at it, go buy some Blossom DVDs!

SXSW Interactive: A Wrap-Up

Everything's bigger in Texas, including the fake hair on their airport bathroom mirrors!

Here I sit, coming to you live from BWI Airport near Baltimore, Maryland, with heavy thoughts on my mind. The most pressing, of course, is why on earth this airport doesn't have Kosher Vending machines. After all, the Baltimore/DC Jewish community is massive, and the kosher crowd in Baltimore alone calls for such amenities, right? Alas. I'll pull out my horribly squished PB&J (made in my hotel around 10 p.m. last night) and pray for tastiness. One thing's for sure: I can't wait for a home-cooked meal. And another thing's for sure: Next year, SXSW Interactive better prepare itself for some serious, rocking, Israeli and Jewish folks who will be chowing with a vengeance on kosher food every day of the week. Believe me, the vision is there, the passion is there, the drive is there -- we just have to start planning, and by that, I mean planning starting today. SXSW Interactive is big doins, and you have to represent early. More on the vision later, however. Right now? More on the past four days!

Last night, we ventured to H-E-B, a grocery store in Austin that touts a little kosher grill (something we don't even have in West Hartford). These folks, in addition to having a crapton of kosher goodies (again, more than we have in West Hartford), they have a grill where you can order fries, burgers, chicken wraps, pastrami, and more. It's like an actual restaurant in the grocery store, and there's even seating! What a novel concept, right? So I opted for the Spicy Buffalo Wrap with some Spicy Fries. Stay tuned for a Yelp! review. The coolest thing about eating there, however, was running into some Israeli musicians who also were getting dinner. They sat down with us, and we ate together, talking about SXSW and those darn dairy Wal-Mart bread crumbs (no good for schnitzel, you know). The funniest thing about last night eating there with them, however, were two things they said. One was that my Hebrew accent is French, and the other was that I don't look outright Orthodox with my "Sex and the City" haircut. That made me want to roll on the floor giggling, but I maintained my composure. I'll be honest: No one has EVER told me my haircut is Sex and the City. What do you guys think?

Yes, I was at a party with Ashton Kutcher, Evan Williams (of Twitter fame), and Gary V., and yes I missed the "secret" U2 concert that was played at a local bar (I don't even like U2, sacrilege, I know). I met longtime friend (FINALLY) @caro, and I spent a great deal of time at the @FourSquare party with Dave Weinberg and Leah Jones, among others, sipping mojitos (which some Israeli friends told me actually is pronounced "moCHito" with a chet) and talking aliyah and the height of Mr. Kutcher. I dropped names to get into parties, enjoyed my VIP status and the stack of free t-shirts I picked up, not to mention stickers and pins and free Starbucks VIA coffee mugs and free Skype goodies ... but is that why I went to SXSW Interactive? To get free schwag and party with celebrities at branded parties?

I met folks from Stickybits (software doesn't work on my phone), folks from Grizzly and StumbleUpon. I talked to folks at the Google booth and at Glass, and I even walked past the PayPal station to express my disconcern about my account issues (resulting in free beer). My time at SXSW Interactive was peppered with a mass of THINGS and STUFF and PEOPLE, all selling themselves and their brands. It was a big love fest of tech startups and tech giants. So?

I think it was the moments like those at the H-E-B grill that really stick with me. That and some of the panel moments. I was thinking in the shower the other night that what I learned in the community management session was true: You have to talk to your customers. Even I was saying that, but from the viewpoint of the customer, not the producer. So I realized something: I produce a product every week, and sometimes every day, that consumers -- that's YOU guys -- buy into. I've gotten kind of bad in the past about not responding to comments, and I realized that's bad customer service. I've taken months to respond to emails, that's also bad customer service. So I learned something: I gotta care more! I also came into contact with some amazing people with amazing ideas. We had Microsoft Israel in our Judaism 2.0 panel (check out more on that at www.bit.ly/judaism20), I met a social media god at HP, I listened to Gary V. preach the good word of customer service and building relationships and doing what you love. I met (finally) two rappers who schlepped around SXSW seriously rocking and making their presence known, simply by rapping questions!

Although SXSW Interactive was a flurry of STUFF and THINGS, it was also incredibly powerful in the way that it brought more than 15,000 people into a space and made them interact, whether on the web through Twitter in sessions or face-to-face in core conversations like ours. A lot of people call it a big circle jerk, big dogs like Evan Williams and Gary V. tooting their own horns, but isn't that what we can use as a model? People from nothing turning into something in a thriving world of Social Media and Web 2.0? Aren't they our role models for success in business and e-creation? I think so.

Overall, however, the thing just wore the heck out of me. I didn't go to the closing party last night because I was spent. I felt really old, really lame, and really tired. I don't know how some of these people do it; many of these tech folks are very married and very much parents. I walked away from the entire thing invigorated, excited, and ready to do more. Gary V. says don't quit your job and think you're going to change the world with your tech and social media, but I don't know how every person that listened to him talk couldn't really want to do that.

I know I did. (Thank HaShem I'm a student for life!)

So stay tuned for LOTS of photos, including probably my most favorite panel at SXSW Film, and the only Film one I went to, which included the cast of the NEW MacGruber movie. Seth Meyers showed up (awesome), and I have a picture with him. I'm such a Midwestern girl, unexposed to stars and stardom and celebrity. I'm a sucker for a picture with someone famous and hilarious. Oh, and Val Kilmer? Yikes. He's gone downhill, a lot. The upside? He's hilarious.