Review of the "First International Jewish Bloggers Convention"

B"H

I can imagine that those of you who hadn't been to the Nefesh Be' Nefesh Bloggers Convention in Jerusalem are anxiously waiting for a report about the event. Despite more than a thousand live participants on the Internet, a web cam never shows the real impressions.

But first I want to state that I didn't put any links to the bloggers mentioned in my report. You may call it uncooperative but I simply don't have the time putting several links. If anyone is interested in looking at those blogs, you may google them.

The Aliyah organization Nefesh Be' Nefesh organized its first international blogger convention and thus, the organizers didn't exclude failures. There is always a first time. What the organizers probably didn't expect was the large amount of participants. The room was packed with about 200 bloggers.

Even before the event actually started, many blogs called for a boycott and I am not going to list any more reasons, as they are well known already. However, the reason why many bloggers, including myself, did participate was mostly curiousity. See some other bloggers and learn a few things about traffic and how to find sufficient time for running a blog.

At the entrance we all got this stickers where we wrote down our blog name and family name and stuck them onto our shirts. Then everyone just started walking around looking at the batches and see if there is someone familiar. Honestly, most blogs I had never heard about. The funniest blog name I saw so far was the "Westbank Mama".

There was a great variety of participants; from national religious to Chabad or Breslov and secular. It wasn't a necessarily religious frummy event, that's for sure. I am not the typ who is looking for communication all the time. Instead I went to the food first. And by the way, you may complain about anything but not about the food. The meat, salads and cake were delicious.

Besides our name tags, we also received black bag for our laptops. Inside the bag was some propaganda material by Nefesh Be' Nefesh. I only knew three of the participants and we sat together right somewhere in the front. In order to see everything, of course. One of my friends said that Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu is going to show up. I didn't even know that, as Nefesh Be' Nefesh hadn't announced it long before.

People were busying running to the buffet and in the meantime the organizers offered bloggers to give interviews. Immediately some bloggers lined up and enjoyed promoting their blog in front of the camera. It was interesting to see how some bloggers are so much into promotion; you wouldn't believe it. The worst one of the whole event was Batya Medad, the wife of the blogger (MyRightWord) Yisrael Medad. When later people were allowed to ask questions, Batya jumped up and started about talking her new cooking blog. No one wanted to know this and she really made a fool of herself. This went on and on until finally one of the panel members interrupted her by asking: "So, what is your question".

The first panel members were introduced and it turned out that David Bogner from Treppenwitz is a good speaker but this doesn't make me reading his family stories. And Gil Student from Hirhurim is hyperactive and once you let him talk, he cannot stop himself anymore. He just gets lost in the middle of nowhere and in the end everyone is bored.

Suddenly Benjamin Netanyahu walked in. Together with his bodyguard and a young female journalist soldier from the army radio channel "Galei Zahal". By the way, I saw many journalists and I started asking myself why this event was so important that they came. Netanyahu had to rush and started his speech right after David Bogner had finished. The radio journalist only recorded those parts of his speech where he attacked the government or talked about his future plans.

"Yes, he does have his won blog but uses a ghost writer".
Well, at least Netanyahu was honest about that. In general, he is a very good speaker and is able to express himself in fluent English. Thanks to G – d that we didn't have to suffer through Olmert or Mofaz stutterings. If there are any at all.
Unfortunately, the whole discussion got lost after a while. Although Netanyahu started off well, he later got lost in political issues. But this was rather the fault of the participants, as many of them seemed to belong to his fan club. Nevertheless, the opposition leader seems to be the only person in the Knesset realizing and using the power of the Internet. Most other politicians still rely on the yellow press because of nice little pictures and the fact that no one needs a brain to read that.

What I had expected from the event was much more information for bloggers but instead there were either politics or Aliyah propaganda. Of course, Nefesh Be' Nefesh follows a certain agenda called Aliyah and bringing Jews to Israel. Throughout the whole convention we served as examples how great new immigrants can be absorbed. "If they can make it, I can make it", this was the message Nefesh Be' Nefesh tried to give you via camera. Nevertheless, in the end, everyone has to decide for himself if he wants to move to Israel or not.

After an endless while, a 10 – minutes break was announced. I started going into the buffet direction, as a journalist from a German Jewish paper stopped me. He had a few questions and I almost missed my coffee. After the break, a lady from the foreign ministry started her lecture about how to give Israel a better image and use its potential. The lecture was good but the new ideas of the ministry are due to fail. Providing Israel with a better image is more than necessary but not the way the ministry wants to do it. The plans were made up by people sitting in an office and have nothing do to with reality. We need to find a logo just like NYC and its apple. What Israel doesn't have a logo ? What about the Torah, the Temple Mount (without any mosques) and the Kotel (Western Wall) ? Isn't that enough ?

Moreover, the lecturers hardly stopped emphasizing that we Jewish bloggers are a community or an establishment.
Well, I have to say a lot on that, as I don't belong to any community nor am I an establishment.

I don't promote our government nor the opposition but rather write how I see things happening in Israel. And for this reason, I am independent and are able to write about whatever I want. Israel and the Jews have a special task in this world and I am trying to give this message over to other people. As a religious Jew, I am not the type of multi cultural Blabla and beating about the bush. I have nothing against other religions but do see it as my mission to write and warn against Christian missionaries. Against people misusing the Torah and fake our own Jewish history for their own vicious purposes. And as Benjamin Netanyahu said: "Only if we know our own history, we are able to expose all the false propaganda and accusations of our enemies".

Personally I don't do anyone favours by receiving money and then write about them. I don't pretend to be such a nice person just in order to make a good impression on the whole world. And whoever wants something softer, can go somewhere else and get his brain washing part.

Generally I am glad I participated in the convention; it was a great experience. On the other hand, I found out for myself that I am going on with my own agenda and don't intend to cooperate too much. Every blogger and his blog should stands for something individual and it is extremely important keeping this uniqueness. Thus no one can say that this or that blog is bad. There is something unique in each blog even if you don't read it.

Nefesh Be' Nefesh announced a second convention for the coming year. I wish there would be less politics and much less Aliyah propaganda. My second wish won't be fulfilled, as NBN' s agenda is Aliyah. However, I would rather prefer some more blogger information.

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Photos of the convention are following soon !