That was for the bloggers.
Just a few more thoughts regarding the NBN Jewish blogger conference (in addition to what I already wrote here…) Since this will mostly interest those who were actually in attendance (either physically or virtually) and everything has already been written to death, I’ll keep it short (always a relative term with me). If you want a more detailed minute by minute account, there’s a good one over at Mere Rhetoric.
- I don’t want to start mentioning everyone I met or I’ll turn into Hilary Swank at the 2000 Oscars forgetting to thank her husband (minus the “Boys Don’t Cry” str- …umm, never mind.) Anyway, before I even walked in the door, I met a few people I’ve read and corresponded with: Jameel, Baila, CK from Jewlicious (who I’ve met before), and Aussie Dave. Nice way to kick things off.
- Esther Kustanowitz was entertaining as always as a moderator of the first panel. I laughed out loud a few times.
In conclusion: chumus good.Clothes falling off clothesline…not so good.
(Photo credit: Jacob Richman)
- Bibi spoke way too long about everything but blogging. I even got up after half an hour to get some cold cuts. (Ok, can someone please give me a Hebrew deli lesson? Is pastrama everything, like cornfleks is every kind of cereal? Is it pastrami…or is it turkey? Then what is hodu? AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!!!!) It certainly seemed like he didn’t know his own blog’s URL, didn’t it?, pausing before answering someone’s question. He got it right though (I checked when I got home.) With so many questions about EBB (everything but blogging), I was tempted to ask him if he reads Perez Hilton but thought most of the crowd wouldn’t get it. After Bibi left the room, I ran out to the street to see if I could grab him for a picture. No luck. Not exactly sure what pose I would have asked him to do. Maybe one serious pose and then one crazy picture. (Is it only in America when they have a soccer team or wedding party pose seriously and then reward you for your patience with the “crazy picture”? GO NUTS PEOPLE! STICK YOUR TONGUES OUT! DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT HOLDING BACK!!! IT’S THE CRAZY PICTURE!)
- I had a great time on the second panel. The subject was “Building Israel One Post at a Time.” It wasn’t entirely clear what that meant but the moderator asked us to talk about how we can “keep making aliyah every day”, meaning how we can continue to be ideological and helping Israel through our blog. (If you hadn’t heard, it doesn’t end the moment the plane lands.) I enjoyed hearing the other panelists (Gila, Yisrael (the only one I hadn’t heard of before), Yael, and David) and wondered if I was going to be able to fill my five minutes. It ended up going over really well, I thought-I hope to post the video sometime in the coming week or two (once I get my hands on it.)
For those of you who weren’t there, the big secret of this session?
Two words: no pants.
- As for media coverage….here’s a Ynet article in English. As to the three people who moved here because of me….freiers!!! HA! You are now required to start your own blogs and fool three more people into moving here. (Do I even need to write “just kidding”? I love making that joke which I can of course since I’m Israeli.)
Update: After doing some research with my contact at NBN, let’s just say that she didn’t exactly say that three people made aliyah because of me. Good thing it was a harmless misquote. They could have said I was raised by falafel balls in the Ukraine or something.
Ynet in Hebrew. And finally, Haaretz in English.
If you can’t read the caption, I love how Facebook added the picture of Ahmadinejad for this headline. What, you didn’t see him at the buffet? If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: ‘Moudy loves the pastrama.
A Nefesh B’Nefesh conference gets written up and the first visible Google ad is….DOH!You think somebody in the home office is pissed right now?
Personally, I’m more upset about being told why my belly is fat. How rude.
Much has been written on various blogs about how successful (or not) the conference was in achieving whatever it was it was out to do. In the end, at the very least, it was a pleasure to meet other people who both enjoy writing and living in Israel. Despite room for improvement, many of us walked out at the end in a good mood and excited about continuing to write. And happy, excited bloggers living in Israel probably correlates to continued good press and messages coming out of Israel. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.
Lastly, here is my interview from a couple weeks back, complete with subtitles. Thanks to new friend and video editor Tony for doing it for me.
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