JewsByChoice.org

Wow it’s already been close to a month since my last post and I’m happy to report that in that time we’ve made a lot of progress regarding the new website design.  As I’m sure you can see by the new layout and new features now available here at JewsByChoice.org, we are trying to move in a fresh direction with the revamped site.  Basically, we’d like to be a little bit less of a one trick pony then we were in our first incarnation.  Since day one hour aim has always been to provide an online space, where Jews by choice can network with other JBCs as well as, explore and engage with Jewish identity, culture and tradition, in short more of a social networking site.

Unfortunately our first attempt never really panned out when we started this site back in 2007.  I think part of the problem is that the technology just wasn’t there yet.  Also I suppose I’m partly to blame because I didn’t have the skills to pull off what it is we were trying to accomplish.  Lastly, I don’t think that we had all of the right people involved to make things work as well as it could have.  That’s not to suggest that our contributors weren’t great because they all gave 110%.  It’s more that we (meaning me) probably needed to have some professional/paraprofessional advice and help in terms of management in project planning.  You know taking the vision and breaking it down into specific and attainable steps.  Fortunately, I now have a little bit more support from people working in the Jewish professional community and this should make things a little smoother this time round.

Anyhow, let me try to rein in this rant a little bit and get to the point.

Basically I just wanted to let everyone know that after a month of closed beta testing  we are now ready to open up registration to anyone who’s interested in participating as part of our (hopefully) growing community of engaged JBCs.  So to the people who have been e-mailing me regarding helping out, as well as anyone else who is interested in participating, I’d like to invite you to head over to our registration page and sign up for a member account.

Again please keep in mind that we are still very much in a beta phase, so the site is going to be changing (probably a fair amount) over the next few months.  Also there is bound to be bugs and glitches so please be patient with us as we continue to refine things here on the site.

With that I would like to say goodnight and thank you to everyone who’s been e-mailing and/or showing support in other ways as we work on getting the new version of the site up and running.

Be well
Avi M