Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Bye, bye Helen

The power of the internet is fascinating. A teenager and his father, Adam Nesenoff and Rabbi David Nesenoff, were pretty far down the media food chain, but after interviewing media icon Helen Thomas during the American Jewish Heritage Month celebration on May 27 at the White House, they became a media sensation.

They went around asking notables if they had any "comments on Israel," and as the world now knows, Helen Thomas sure did.

"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine," the doyenne of the Washington press corps said, and laughed. "Remember, these people are occupied, and it's their land."

Nesenoff asked where she thought they should go.

"Go home," she responded.

Asked to elaborate, Thomas said, “Poland, Germany,” and after more prompting by the rabbi, added “and America, and everywhere else.”

The video was only posted on June 3, and quickly gained national attention, unleashing a flurry of demands for Thomas’ marginalization, if not dismissal.

On Monday, Thomas, 89, heeded the calls and quit. It was a rapid fall for a woman who had become a liberal icon.

Thomas, the child of Lebanese immigrants, was known to be a fierce critic of Israel, but it took a citizen journalist to initiate her fall.

You can see the video here.

Friday, May 14, 2010

I also hate the Jews on Facebook


Facebook has a new problem. Antisemitism. To be more precise: Facebook groups in Spanish with the name "Yo Tambien Odio Los Judios" ("I also hate the Jews"). For the last two weeks, groups with this name were being created on Facebook. No one has to join the group (and share much private information), but only give a thumbs up, pressing the "I like" bottom.

As a reaction, a group with the name 24 HORAS para que Facebook borre el grupo "YO TAMBIÉN ODIO A LOS JUDÍOS" (24 hours for Facebook to delete the group "I also hate the Jews") was created.

The antisemitic groups seem to be mainly joined by Latin Americans, among them the vast majority from Argentina. The first two groups were eliminated with around 500 members each. Here a news report on the elimination of the first group (in Spanish). The members shared antisemitic material from many infamous websites, including Spanish translations of the so-called Protocolls of the Elders of Zion, but also from sources such as YouTube. After Facebook removed the group, a new group with the same name was created today, so far attracting around 200 members (and growing).

Facebook wants to grow up and make its business more profitable, but hate groups who misuse the freedom provided to them, will definitely leave stains on its reputation.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Bearing Witness in Second Life


Denver's Chanel 9 News reported about Fanny Starr, a Holocaust survivor who regularly speaks in Second Life about her experiences (2Life reported several times about events with her). Here the video.

Friday, March 5, 2010

The Inchvestor



Jerry Paffendorf is one of the pioneer entrepreneurs of Second Life. During the big media boom, his name came up in many of the stories dealing with virtual real estate.

Roughly a year ago, he spoke with Rita J. King, founder of "Dancing Ink Productions", about his new real life venture. The story can be found here. Loveland, so the name of the project, is a micro real estate project, selling land in the Detroit area inch by inch. (King is currently his biggest investor.)

Detroit has 62,000 uninhabited buildings and vacant lots, according to the U.S. Postal Service. Entire blocks of commercial and residential property are deserted. It's the harsh, physical evidence of a city that has lost 1 million people from its peak population of 1.8 million in the 1950s. Right now, Paffendorf is selling an inch of Detroit real estate for $1. After 10,000 square inches are sold, Paffendorf plans to begin selling property by the square foot.

NPR has an interesting story about this (click here) and so does the Detroit News.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Fiddler on the Japanese Roof


The internet is full of little fun things to discover, like this one here: a Japanese version of Fiddler in the Roof. If you visit the YouTube site, you even find more songs from this American musical. Enjoy.

Under Attack in a Virtual World

PresenTense virtual issue is taking shape in Google Wave. Among the articles that can be already found online is one by Andre Oboler, originally published by PresenTense Magazine in The Digital Issue, February 2010.

The Jewish people are losing the war. When it comes to the online world, we are for the most part disorganized, under-resourced and lacking leadership. Battles may be determined by short-term objectives, but wars are won by strategy and determination. In the Jewish world today, few have realized that we are in an online virtual war. This is a war against the Jewish state, and against the Jewish people.

The virtual world is a battleground of competing ideas. In a world with no absolute truth or commonly accepted values, racism and intolerance are becoming widely accepted in society. Discrimination, rather than freedom from discrimination, becomes a right. As these poisonous ideas spill over from the virtual world into the real world, there is a potential reversal of all the progress that has been made in the name of civil rights.

Online, as in the real world, there is an extreme fringe. These are the classic antisemites and racists, often sporting swastikas and calling for death to the Jews. In the real world, such racism is opposed and attracts social penalties. In the virtual world, however, such expressions of hate usually pass without comment. Modern online values can even legitimize such views, giving them equal weight to any other “opinion”. Online anonymity further exacerbates the problem. The largest challenge we face is not the racists — it is the online culture that accepts them and their message. This acceptance allows others, particularly the young, to be drawn to prejudice through their ignorance. It encourages good people to stand idly by, or risk the ire of the community for attempting to limit another’s “free expression”.

In May 2007, Facebook added a code of conduct to support its terms of service. The code stated, "While we believe users should be able to express themselves and their point of view, certain kinds of speech simply do not belong in a community like Facebook."

The code of conduct did not seek to define what was illegal; instead, it sought to define shared values for the Facebook community. The code sought to exclude "graphic or gratuitous violence," "threats of any kind,” material that “intimidates, harasses, or bullies anyone” and “derogatory, demeaning, malicious, defamatory, abusive, offensive or hateful” material. The code of conduct lasted almost two years before it was quietly dropped.

Commenting on Holocaust denial on Facebook after the code of conduct was removed, Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt said, "The bottom line is that, of course, we abhor Nazi ideals and find Holocaust denial repulsive and ignorant. However, we believe people have a right to discuss these ideas and we want Facebook to be a place where ideas — even controversial ideas — can be discussed.”

When hate-inspired conspiracy is considered as legitimate as historical fact, we have entered a dangerous post-modern stage of society. When those wishing to excuse or deny the Holocaust are said to have nothing worse than a controversial idea, it’s time to step back and wonder how far online society has regressed.

Since the beginning of 2010, Facebook, responding to a public outcry, has started to remove the classic Nazi and Holocaust-denial groups such as “For the followers of Hitler” and “6,000,000 for the TRUTH about the Holocaust.” This change has happened without an announcement, press release or change in written policy.

While this is a step in the right direction, a significant amount of hateful content continues to proliferate on Facebook. Without a doubt, anti-Semitism abounds. More than 100 “Gaza Holocaust” groups, both large and small, still exist. Many of the groups label Israelis as Nazis and demonize Jews. Messages that attack Israel as a Nazi, apartheid, evil state pervade both Facebook and the Internet in general. Moreover, derogatory comments about the disabled, gays and various non-whites are increasingly common on other social-media sites, such as YouTube, Flickr and Blogger. This is not just a Jewish issue.

In the war of ideas, we must look for something to spark a change in online social values. Public leadership on social values is needed. We must hope such leadership eventually will emerge from the corporate world, from the likes of Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. If it does not, that role falls to governments and the general public.

Change is starting to happen. “David Appletree,” working under a pseudonym due to concern for his safety, founded the Jewish Internet Defense Force in 2008. The organization’s campaigns have led to the removal of hundreds of antisemitic groups on Facebook, as well as hundreds of racist YouTube videos.

"The problem is overwhelming,” Appletree said. “More people need to get involved to fight anti-Semitism online. Only then can we, together, start to get on top of this problem."

Recently though, Appletree’s own Facebook account was disabled by the social-media site because he does not use his real name. But more than 50 accounts purporting to belong to Santa Claus have not been given the same treatment.

Last December, the Zionist Federation of Australia launched the Community Internet Engagement Project to provide research, training and support to the Australian Jewish community to respond to online hate. That same month, the Global Forum to Combat Anti-Semitism met in Jerusalem, where experts and government representatives from around the world discussed antisemitism, including online antisemitism. The forum produced 17 pages of recommendations to combat online antisemitism.

In an Internet culture where hate of Jews and Israel is seen as just another equally legitimate viewpoint, the Jewish people are set for disaster. Historically, we have been persecuted not just because we had persecutors, but because those who could have stopped it stood idly by. The online world is creating a culture where people will — once again — stand idly by.

As Jews we must stand up and challenge those who use technology to promote racism and hate. We must use the tools provided by sites such as Facebook and YouTube to report the hate we see online. In the wider name of humanity, we must ask others to join us, to turn their backs on those who hate and to exclude them from our online communities. We must create a culture where people refuse to participate in communities that lack basic social values. This starts when we take a stand ourselves, as individuals, against the hate, racism, and bullying we see online. We must work for an online world that remembers the lessons of the past and incorporates the strides made for human rights over the last 60 years.

The clash of cultures that is taking place around the globe is reflected online, but so is the rejection of Western values. We are once again in a brave new world, a world of rapid change where anything can happen. In this new world the Jewish people are once again the canary in the coal mine. The online war over the values of society is a war that we must win — and not only for the sake of the Jewish people. This is a war over universal values. It is a war that civil society can’t afford to lose.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Wave



Google has a new feature: Wave. Wave allows communication and collaboration in real time. Something that might change the way Internet communication works. Not only for individuals, but for organizations, networks etc. Working online might never be the same. Or at least this is what optimists hope.
PresenTense is one of the first organizations to explore the possibilities of Google Wave. Their 10th issues is dedicated to digital realities, and it will only be published online, not as a hard copy, using Google Wave.
An interesting experiment. The results will be presented in a few weeks, and for sure this will make some waves.
For those who want to learn more about Google Wave, watch this long presentation made last year, introducing the feature to a few chosen ones as a kind of unofficial launch.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Virtual Revolution

BBC has produced a very interesting looking documentary about how the Internet has transformed the world, but ironically enough, you can only watch it online if you life in the UK. To quote my buddy Wagner James Au: "Don't you think it's immensely silly to produce an online program claiming that the Internet has transformed the world... then prevent almost everyone in the world from viewing it on the Internet?"
Anyhow, on YouTube you find an interesting teaser. Hope to be able to watch more online in the near future.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Lost


The final season of Lost set to kickoff tonight night. The JTA staff started wondering: What if it had been an El Al flight that crashed on the island? Here the answers from their website:

In the first place, the plane would have never crashed because the pilots would have been able to perform evasive maneuvers. But if it had…
- Jack would not have been the only doctor.
- John Locke would have been named Yeshyahu Leibowitz.
- Sayid would have never been on the plane.
- Instead of his makeshift radio, some of the Israeli passengers would have set up a high-speed Internet link.
- A Chabad house would have opened up.
- There would be more than just one recklessly driven, German-made vehicle on the road.
- The existence of a nuclear weapon on the island would never have been acknowledged.
- Gratuitous shots of Kate in her underwear would be replaced by quick peeks of haredi women sans sheitels.
- The island would suddenly have attracted the attention of the entire world, with the U.N. accusing the passengers of illegally occupying territory and using disproportionate force to fend off attacks by the Others.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Teaching á la Modiya

Teaching à la Modiya” offers strategies and multi-media primary sources for teaching selected readings related to cultural practices at the intersection of Jews, media, and religion. Each installment brings students into direct contact with the primary sources upon which a given reading is based. Inspired by Teaching the Journal of American History, each installment includes a reading, commentary by the author, and exercises using primary sources (artifacts, photographs, film clips, audio, excerpts from a variety of texts), as well as recommended readings and links to relevant materials accessible online.

The first installment is dedicated to "Absolut Tchotchke," Chapter 5 of Jeffrey Shandler's, Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture (University of California Press, 2005).

This chapter explores how American Jews express their postvernacular relationship to Yiddish through objects.

The Absolut Tchotchke installment includes the complete chapter, discussion questions, recommended readings, and four exercises, together with primary source materials, on the following topics:

• Analyzing Objects of Postvernacular Yiddish
• Mock Yiddish-English Dictionaries
• Postvernacular Yiddish on eBay
• Material Culture of Other Postvernacular Languages (Irish, Occitan)

Teaching à la Modiya” is a project of the Working Group on Jews Media and Religion, which is convened by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jeffrey Shandler at New York University’s Center for Religion and Media.

If you are curious, click here.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Cultural Heritage Artists Project: Jaime Kriksciun


On Sunday, the Cultural Heritage Artists Project of the Orchard Street Shul will end. At this point, it is not decided if this exhibition will travel to another location, but all in all the feedback was very positive. We take this opportunity to introduce another, last artist -- and apologize to all of the other artists who did not make it into the blog. Here now three questions to Jaime Kriksciun.

How did you find out about the Orchard Street Shul project and what motivated you to participate?
I received a call to artists through the New Haven Arts Council. My interest was first sparked by the restoration aspect as a major portion of my career consists of the restoration and refurbishing of old and deteriorating stained glass windows, many associated with ecclesiastical buildings. Before my first official visit to the Shul as part of the CHAPS group, I did a drive by and was immediately struck by the unusual architecture of the building. Once inside, it was obvious this was a diamond in the rough in desperate and necessary need of repair, as a historic landmark, not only for followers of the Jewish faith, but also for New Haven and the community as a whole.

How does this work fit into the context of your other art work?
Trained as a fine artist in multiple disciplines, my focus has been in stained glass for the past ten years. I've sought to push the craft and it's medium from more traditional means into the 21st century, mixing mediums (paint, found objects, etc. . .) with the glass. I tend to tell inspired stories through my pieces and I saw in the shul and it's story a perfect opportunity. There are many layers to my work, literally and figuratively, beyond the broad theme or idea I wish to express. I notoriously includes subtle details, in the form of meaningful objects which require close inspection and deeper introspection. In the case of the Shul piece, I was able to procure several broken crystals from the building's chandeliers as well as some paint chips which i directly incorporated into the work.

What did you "learn" by dealing with the synagogue as inspiration for your work?
At a very basic level, I was simply unaware of the existence of the Orchard Street Shul. I knew of the neighborhood, but became increasingly fascinated by the history that unfolded surrounding the area and the Shul as the project progressed. Not being of the Jewish faith and knowing somewhat little of the Jewish practice of worship (until becoming involved with the Orchard Street Shul project) I was largely unfamiliar with the interior design of a synagogue and the specific symbolisms therein. I've always been a follower of architectural styles and movements. Having had the opportunity to attend some of the lectures and talks on the diversity of synagogue building and architecture throughout history in the New Haven area as well as nationwide and abroad has expanded my knowledge and sparked my interest in this specific area of design.

Monday, January 25, 2010

The People of the DNA


JLTV's Brad Pomerance reports on Author Jon Entine's Book "Abraham's DNA: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People."

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Living Virtually


Don Heider, dean of the school of communication at LOYLA university of Chicago, wrote a book a book about life in the age of Web 2.0. The title: Living Virtually. 2Life Magazine is also mentioned in it (if you go to the Amazon website and click on book preview, you can find the entry, it is on page 280). On YouTube I found the interview with him about this project. Sounds interesting. Maybe 2Life can obtain a review copy.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Virtually Jewish in JW Magazine

The winter issues of Jewish Woman Magazine features a piece by Elicia Brown on online Judaism, stating that
From online minyans to e-conversions, from streaming Shabbat services to “Second Life” Shabbat candle-lighting, e-Judaism is reaching new audiences and transforming lives.
Brown also mentions Second Life in her story:

Virtually Jewish

I don’t know Ben Hammer or his family, and I didn’t fly from my home in New York City to Loveland, Ohio, where Ben’s bar mitzvah took place. I wasn’t invited. But I do know that Ben wore a dark suit, white shirt and red tie to his ceremony. And I know that although he didn’t glance up often from his prepared speech, he did master the perfect pause between phrases, and twitched his fingers animatedly to suggest parentheses around a word.

I know all this because I attended Ben’s bar mitzvah. Virtually, that is.

Ben Hammer’s may be among the first bar mitzvahs to be streamed live online, but it surely won’t be the last. With just a few clicks of a computer mouse, anyone—a far-flung relative or an ailing friend—could have witnessed the scene in the blond-wood sanctuary of Congregation Beth Adam on that morning in August. Even today, months afterward, anyone can watch Ben’s event.

I’m no techie. I still scribble on a paper calendar to keep track of my events and appointments. So when I started to explore recent Jewish innovations on the Web, I was astonished. If the online world is called cyberspace, then it appears that the stars are actively realigning.

Some observers describe the transformation in the Jewish world as akin to the shift from an oral tradition to a written one. “Now we’re moving from books to a Digital Age,” says Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu, who directs Rabbis Without Borders, helping rabbis rethink their route to reaching Jews. “Some enter with a little trepidation. What does it mean to offer rabbinical advice to someone you’ve never seen?”

One person who understands this experience is Rabbi Laura Baum, the 30-year-old “cyber rabbi” who co-officiated at Ben’s bar mitzvah and was hired to work half-time at the humanistic congregation, Beth Adam, and half-time at OurJewishCommunity.org. On the Web site, Rabbi Baum posts her blog, streams Shabbat services each week customized for the Internet and offers online bar mitzvah training. She’s received appreciative messages from people around the world. Of her role as e-rabbi, she says: “It’s a little bizarre, but also pretty amazing. I’m giving all of these people a voice who wouldn’t otherwise have one.”

The new technology extends beyond e-rabbis and cyber-synagogues to streaming bar mitzvahs, Shabbat services, and funerals that acquaintances can attend virtually. There are bar mitzvah students who upload videos of themselves on YouTube so their tutors can remotely review their recitations of Torah. There’s an ambitious project called CyberJudaism.org, which hopes to fill an online sanctuary with daily services from every denomination, so that travelers the world over can drop in to a minyan of choice, at their hour of choice. And there’s something called Torah Twitter, in which participants of the social network can “tweet” words of Jewish wisdom and text.

And in perhaps the most radical example of technological innovation, a Jewish community is growing up on the virtual world known as Second Life, a kind of online game in which participants create avatars of themselves, selecting physical characteristics and clothing, and “teleport” to virtual locations of Jewish interest.

Now, I must admit I’m perfectly satisfied with RL Judaism (that’s “Real Life” Judaism in Second Life lingo). But Rabbi Brad Hirshfield, co-president of CLAL (the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership), says don’t be too quick to judge: “I don’t think that even if the most beautiful virtual synagogue in the world was built would it work for me. But would I like to see it built? Yes. Because there are probably a million people or more for whom it would work.”

Cyber-Conversion

Brenna Thomas, 40, who works at an Internet security firm outside Chicago, is among the many individuals whose lives have been transformed by virtual Judaism.

Thomas is one of 50 Jews converted by Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg, who runs an e-synagogue as well as a conventional Conservative congregation in a suburb of Chicago. Rabbi Ginsburg has also educated two b’nai mitzvah students in this manner, and enrolled eight students in his online Hebrew school.

Rabbi Ginsburg was a godsend for Thomas, who says she had Christianity “shoved down my throat” as a child and who as an adult began exploring other religions. Drawn to Judaism because it encourages questioning, Thomas attended a program at a local synagogue, but was turned off when the rabbi made racist remarks about Palestinians.

Through her brother, she learned of Rabbi Ginsburg’s online course. After three months of intense preparation, which included reading half a dozen hefty books, memorizing prayers, and watching a series of Rabbi Ginsburg’s YouTube videos, Thomas left her home at the crack of dawn one morning last spring. She drove with her four children to meet Rabbi Ginsburg for the first time.

She also met a bet din, a rabbinic court, and plunged—along with three of her four children—into the Jewish ritual bath. “The mikvah was awesome,” says Thomas. “I actually cried when I came up for the third time.” The three rabbis and her family cheered.

Thomas doesn’t often make it to religious services these days because, she says, “I am too remote from any synagogue I would want to attend.” But she still tunes in to Jewish YouTube videos, keeps a Bible on her nightstand, banished pork from her kitchen, and is dating a Jewish man she met through JDate.

She’s learned so much about Jewish history and law in recent months that she jokes that between her and her boyfriend, “we make a whole Jew. He’s got the cultural part. I’m the book-smart part of us.”

Sweet Tweets

You might be surprised to learn that a middle-aged woman based in a middle-class suburb thousands of miles from Silicon Valley is one of the most cyber-friendly rabbis in the cyber-savvy Reform movement. That woman, Rabbi Amy Perlin, who serves Temple B’nai Shalom in Fairfax Station, Va., says that when it comes to adapting high-tech to religious practice, “the question is not why—the question is why not.”

She says: “The rabbis of old were constantly looking for new modalities. I’m 53 years old, and if I stop innovating and finding new avenues for sharing my passion for Torah, I’m going to get stale. I might as well hang up my tallis.”

Back in the 1990s, Rabbi Perlin was one of the first rabbis to launch a Web site for her congregation. About three years ago, she began podcasting Shabbat services (she explored Web-streaming services—which would include video as well as sound—but found it to be too expensive). What intrigues me most about Rabbi Perlin is her discussion of Twitter.

The three-year-old landscape of Twitter abounds in Jewish manifestations. Founded in 2006, the social networking tool allows participants to “tweet” messages of up to 140 characters via their computers or cell phones to a community of followers. Earlier this year, an Israeli entrepreneur announced he would deliver tweets to the Kotel, the Western Wall.

Other innovations include Rabbi Laura Baum tweeting a running commentary of her Passover Seder last year. For Shavuot last year, 200 people tweeted words of Torah in a 24-hour marathon. But I’m most engaged by Rabbi Perlin’s approach, which is to tweet periodically, but only when she comes across something worth sharing. “It’s a nice break from the chatter of the day,” she says, adding that in what tends to be a verbose profession, “it’s a nice challenge to get at a thought in 140 characters.”

And so she tweets: “Observation: A good ‘dying,’ just as a good life, depends on the people who do it with you and a respect for taking the time to do it well.”

But Rabbi Perlin also believes that “breaks from technology are critical, and that God will not come to you from Twitter or the latest e-mail. Online will never replace the synagogue.

“There is a time to embrace technology and a time to refrain from embracing,” says Rabbi Perlin, paraphrasing the famous lines from Ecclesiastes.

First Visit, Second Life

A few hours before sunset on a recent Friday afternoon, I gathered my courage and entered the strange new world of Second Life. It takes more than a few minutes for my computer to upload the application, but I don’t otherwise find it difficult to register for this online, alternative reality. Also, the basic service is free.

And suddenly: There she stands, the avatar named Aleeza Abrahams, my online doppelganger. Like me, she sports dark hair, a short stature and slightly generous hips. Unlike me, Aleeza doesn’t move with ease. I punch a few buttons on my keyboard. I click on the computer mouse. Aleeza wiggles, jerks around awkwardly, and then to my delight, takes flight. I ask the search engine to “teleport” me to the Jewish neighborhood.

Woosh. I hear the gentle lapping of the sea beyond. I spot an Israeli flag, an eternal flame, a schedule of Jewish events. And then I’m off to the Second Life synagogue. It is time to light Shabbat candles.

There are many avenues for experiencing Judaism on Second Life. Javatars (Jewish avatars) can participate in a virtual sukkah building contest, study Torah with a Lubavitcher, visit an exhibit erected by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and teleport to a typical Eastern European synagogue. They can also walk though a cemetery where—as Second Life aficionado Julian Voloj e-mails me—“people can upload photographs of RL (real life) gravestones.”

Caren Levine, who has a background in education technology, logs on to Second Life a couple of times a week, mostly to attend seminars on education. She says, “Some people just roll their eyes. But for people willing to experiment, it has a lot of potential. There’s this serendipity. You meet someone you might not have otherwise.”

Candle-lighting takes place several times every Friday to accommodate Javatars who live in different time zones. When I check in at a few minutes before 4 p.m., I find a man dressed in Chasidic garb crouching and beckoning near the candlesticks. I hope he doesn’t notice me. “Hey Aleeza,” he types to me. “Shabbat Shalom.”

My father-in-law wanders by, in real life. He asks whether I have a date with the Chasidic man crouching on my computer screen. Meanwhile, I can’t get Aleeza to behave. She points aimlessly. She marches. She shimmies. Then just when I’m getting the hang of her movements, and just as a group of Javatars, all dressed to the nines, start descending on the sanctuary for the next candle-lighting, my 4-year-old son lunges for the computer mouse. Aleeza freezes. She’s completely paralyzed. Embarassed, I log off.

When I return, one of the Javatars notes my good timing. Someone recites the blessing. The candles are lit. We—the Javatars—take turns typing in our well wishes, “Good Shabbos. Shabbat Shalom.”

I log off again. I can certainly understand the appeal of Second Life, but I like my first life even better. I have real candles to light. And this time I’ll get a chance to drink some wine, too.