Awarded By and To...

One of my favorite bloggers, Leora of  Sketching Out  awarded me with Liebster Blog Award.  I'm not quite sure what that means, but here are the rules:

If you have been nominated below for The Liebster Award and you choose to accept it, write a blog post about the Liebster award in which you:

1. Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link on your blog.
2. Display the award on your blog by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a widget.
3. Answer the 11 questions about yourself, provided to you by the person who nominated you.
4. Give 11 random facts about yourself. (Note: I skipped this; long enough already!)
5. Nominate 5 to 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award; who have less than 1000 followers.
6. Create a new list of questions for the nominated bloggers to answer.
7. List these rules in your post. (You can copy and paste them from here.)
8. Once you have written your post and published it, you then have to inform the bloggers whom you’ve nominated for the Liebster award. Remember to give a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

Reciprocation by the nominees is entirely optional.

11 questions for those who accept Liebster Blog Award from Leora:

1. Who is your favorite author? Michael Connelly
2. What is your favorite blog topic? Oops! That is a very tough question, since I blog on two blogs.
3. Favorite social media site? Besides blogging?  The only one I "do" is facebook.
4. Topic of your most popular blog post ever? the easiest cake recipe is the most popular/viewed post, but I'm pretty sure that Totally Amazing Challah Shaping Tutorial  will top it soon.
5. Where did your best vacation take place? Vacation?  I really don't vacation ever.  But we made aliyah by boat, and that was amazing.
6. What is your strongest childhood memory? My grandfather died when I was three and a half.  I missed him desperately, and my parents eventually had to take me to the cemetery to see where he was.  
7. What is your favorite online recipe? My own geffilte fish recipe, since I no longer have a copy of it on the inner door of a kitchen closet.  I just look it up on my blog.
8. Which topics do you talk about in person but avoid discussing online? My husband and certain things about the family.
9. What is your favorite film/movie? That's a tough question.  I hardly watch movies, though I adore them.  I have a humongous collection of movie DVDs.  I love musicals, such as Five Pennies and Phantom of the Opera.  I watch and rewatch movies I like.
10. What is your favorite fairy tale? Gevalt, Leora, you sure ask difficult questions!
11. Name a historical leader that influenced you.  I guess I must say Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who tried bringing Zionism to the Jewish People.  Plain ordinary Zionism, not socialist.  He established Betar, and I became a Zionist through Betar.

And here are my awardees:

Beneath the Wings
Phyllis, Superman Sam and Ima on and off the Bima
Ruti- Ki Yachol Nuchal!
Lorri
Jen, Adventures in Mamaland and Aliyahland
Our shiputzim
Miriam's Words
Tikkun Olam

There are many other blogs I follow, but I listed here the ones I think are the lesser known, although blogged by serious bloggers.

11 Questions for my awardee bloggers:

1. How did you start to blog?
2. What's your favorite blogging topic?
3. How often do you blog?
4. What does your family think of your blogging?
5. What advice do you have for newbie bloggers?
6. How do you publicize/promote your blog/s, and if you don't, why?
7. How long does it take for you to write a typical blog post?
8. Blog carnivals, do you participate?
9. Give the "why" and "which ones" to your answer of question #8.
10. What's the purpose/aim of your blog/s?
11. How has blogging affected your life?

I'm looking forward to the responses of the prize winners.  Leora, thanks.  I hope that I followed the rules. 

Amazing--Is This For Ellul?

Maybe this is an example of how Dovbear has gotten so popular. I'm not sure. I think some people like a different aspect of his blogging persona. But anyway, when he got wind of the fact that I was not amused by the fact that he had put words in my mouth, claiming that I had just self-promoted for the jblogger convention microphone, he very generously offered me the opportunity to reply on his blog.

Check it out for the comment-discussion. Join in of course, plus commenting here, if you please.

Best Intentions—to Hell or Accomplishment?

I understand that DovBear, Gil Student and others were finding the Jblogger Convention rather staid and boring. We Jews may be known for our arguments, but the truth is that we jbloggers are a mostly mellow bunch. And the programming, best described as serial pontifications, especially as it appeared on even the largest screen, must have looked like we were sedated after lobotomies.

But why did you guys take it out on me?

As soon as I had heard that there was to be a Jblogger Convention, I decided to utilize the opportunity to promote the jblog carnivals, especially my Kosher Cooking Carnival and the newly resurrected JPIX. I walked around the convention with signup sheets, trying to recruit hosts, and I wasn't shy about reminding Steve of webads that he had promised me "question time" at the mike. I used it to spout my spiel about the jblog carnivals, community (since most of the panelists had used the term), and that was it. I was surprised that Gil Student used his "right of reply" to put down as a very insulting idea that he could be in the same "community" as most of us jbloggers.

Then, post-convention, my husband sent me a quotation from dovbear, who's that?, who claimed that I had gotten up and self-promoted saying: "Read my blog." Mistakenly, kav zchut, I had thought that maybe the recording wasn't clear, but later I checked and that wasn't the problem. I ended up discovering that dovbear and Gil had considered the convention boring and wanted to get some debate going, to shake things up. So I was the fall guy.

Well, you can't have much debate when we had no right of reply. The panelists spoke to the microphone, not to each other. There were no discussions, except far from the microphone. If the convention was really the first, then next time there should be dynamic not static programming.

I'll end with a confession. I'm not a dovbear reader, not at all. I have a hyper-aversion to anything or anyone extremely popular. It's a residue of my parents' constant warning:
"If everyone is jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do it, too?"

But maybe all those hoards are right and I'm wrong. Dovbear's a mensch for inviting me to send this to his blog.

Sincere Thanks,

Batya, Shiloh Musings me-ander The Eye of the Storm , yes, all three.
PS, Sorry, but I don't buy books.

Shabbat Shalom U'Mevorach
May You Have a Peaceful and Blessed Shabbat

JBLOGGER - NBN My View

On a hot, Israeli summer day, I decided to take part in history, the First International JBloggers Convention, sponsored by Nefesh B'Nefesh and webads. It was held in the Nefesh B'Nefesh offices, Givat Shaul, Jerusalem.

I had planned on walking from the Central Bus Station, but the driver who took me, a tremp before the bus came, decided to do me a favor and drop me off in Givat Shaul. They really are close, as you can see from the picture.






I followed the directions NBN had sent, and then came across the first mistake. When we got to the office, we were sent out of the building, not to the offices. NBN has another entrance, which is to large rooms, where the convention was held. Now, this was an "anglo" event. Not only did many come on time, but quite a few of us were early and we weren't allowed to sign in.






But after that, things were better, besides running overtime. But that was no surprise considering that bloggers are communicators and love to ... communicate.

There was lots of food, salads, sliced meat and bread (which I resisted.) Actually, it would have had been much easier to eat sandwiches.




They even had a vegetarian section.




I can't begin to list all of the bloggers I finally met f2f.


Isramom, a friend who pre-dates blogging, internet, computers etc took this picture of me and Ya'akov, aka Dry Bones.




Here's some of the crowd/attendees at the first panel discussion.








Yes, Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu came and was very impressive, but I'll blog more extensively about him and what he said on Shiloh Musings.




Here's Rivka, who's an inspiration.




When I realized that there was a good chance I wouldn't get called on to comment and promote blog carnivals, I spoke to Steve of webads, who was very much in charge, and he told the moderator to call on me. I don't know if there are any pictures, but I got notes from fellow bloggers who were happy to hear my comment/question on the web broadcast. The "biggies" in the first panel were asked, by me, to at least mention when carnivals are posted and link to them to give more exposure. One panelist was very snobby about it and said that he didn't consider us a "community;" it was just his hobby. That was the low point of the entire day, since the entire point of the event was networking, community etc. The other panelists had davka used the term "community," which is why I did. He was very haughty and said some nasty stuff to another questioner who wanted advice on how to promote a blog. He said that he'd never seen it, but he knows that attractive blogs get more readers.

Frum Satire overcame his "under the weather" and performed. Afterwards he pulled out the name of the doorprize winner for a wafflemaker, admitting that he didn't understand why people were laughing--Jameel! Yes, that's my husband who won the wafflemaker. So, please send in lots of waffle recipes and tips.




There was an interruption during the Foreign Ministry's presentation about marketing Israel in a new way, like the "beach bimbo" idea of a few months ago and as "home of three religions." She was reminded that Israel's a Jewish Country!




And here's my husband speaking during his panel.



PS I understand that another blogger trashed my question in his report of the conference. Enough said about that. Since he "miss-heard" my request to put links to the jblog carnivals on blogs and to host jblog carnivals into some personal promotion for myself, I take that as a request not to be included in jblog carnivals. And therefore, when I next host a jblog carnival, I will try to remember that.

I can't tell you what I've cooked for Shabbat...

... and yes, I have been cooking.

The reason is that we're having guests, jblogger guests. That's right! tnspr569 will, G-d willing, be here for Shabbat, with a friend. How he gave himself a name like that.... maybe I should ask him. We only know each other from jblogging. He saw my post about the stuffed freezer and volunteered to help empty it. So I did cook with a few things that have to go before Pesach. Let's see if he can guess which tasty dishes!

There are all sorts of special "activities" here this Shabbat. I hope his Hebrew is up to par for participating. It's outrageous that graduates of Jewish Education aren't totally fluent in Hebrew. After three years of high school Spanish, I could converse fairly fluently, and I'm not good at languages. Israeli students, who get much less English than the American kids' Hebrew studies, are able to converse more easily in English. I teach the lowest level in my high school, and I've tested the higher level in others.

I'm totally convinced that it is intentional. American Jewish parents, even the religious ones, do not want their children to be fluent and comfortable in Hebrew! The more fluent and comfortable one is, the more one feels at home in Israel. That is something that American Jewish parents don't want. They want their kids to feel like tourists, condescending tourists.

For the past few decades, more and more American Jewish high school graduates have been coming for a year in Israel, but they don't spend it with Israelis. They don't have to function in Hebrew. They live in English-speaking ghettos. The programs used to be in Har Nof, Jerusalem, and now many are in the Ramat Beit Shemesh area. Conversational Hebrew and Religious Textual Studies in Hebrew are not required elements in their curriculum.

Reports from the states say that even Orthodox Rabbinic students are studying from translated texts. It's predigested, second-hand knowledge.

I didn't plan on ranting about the state of American Jewry and their Hebrew knowledge, but just like chulent, you throw in the ingredients, and it comes out how it wants to come out.

I hope that I'm pleasantly surprised by tnspr569 .