Richard Florida is one of the more influential thinkers about the trends in City development, having penned such influential books as, “The Creative Class” and “Who’s Your City”. Read More »

As the internet started proliferating, a number of sites developed to try to make sense of the chaos.  Yahoo gained pre-eminence by warehousing links to all sorts of sites, and starting to group them together.  Webcrawler and other early search engines allowed you to go beyond browsing links and start finding specific content. Read More »

A central challenge has emerged in the American Jewish community’s relationship to and support of Israel: How can we as American Jews, embodying an often secular and universalist worldview, support Israel without compromising our ethics or ignoring a Read More »

Iran’s nuclear program has been a cause of concern for Israel, who views its Persian neighbor as an existential threat, based on the the views expressed by the ruling regime. Read More »

The General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America is probably the Jewy-est conference of the year. Read More »

Judaism is, at its core, an agrarian religion. That is to say that our roots quite literally lay in the soil, in the natural cycles of the year, the seasons (at least as they exist in the land of Israel), and an understanding of the interconnectedness of all things. Many of us wonder about the timing of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Read More »

This Sunday in Jerusalem, 150 of the most innovative young Jewish leaders from around the world will converge to build a global network. This convening, under the name ROI, is a relatively recent initiative of Lynn Schusterman and her foundation, which has grown into prominence in the Jewish entrepreneurship movement. Read More »

As I was helping a friend work on her Hebrew pronunciation over the phone, I realized there was one word I didn’t know whether or how to correct. It was the word for immersion. You see, this friend was preparing for her immersion in the mikvah as the final step of her conversion process. Read More »

This was originally posted at Jewishinstlouis.org, but it is great news for area young adults: Hilary Bair, Hilary Cedergreen, Jason Cohen, Vadi Dodge, Stephen Lieberman, Lisa Nixon, Cheryl Perry, Jennifer Scissors, Doug Snyder, Lisa Suffian will soon be taking the trip of a lifetime to Israel — for the first time. Read More »

The Jewish communal world, which started to bring together and find synergies amongst the many Jewish non profit agencies often has a hard time collaborating with new comers. Organizations have staked out their funders, their niche, and working with others might be seen as acknowledging that they are less than perfect. Read More »

Next week, starting Monday night, starts the holiday of Passover, often regarded as the single most observed Jewish event of the year (unless you count Chinese food on Christmas). Read More »

Got Passover Plans? Passover starts Monday night, April 18th, do you need a place for Seder? Chabad is hosting young adult seders both nights, Rabbi Shafner of Bais Abe is opening up his house , and Central Reform is placing young adults with families . Read More »

This story originally appears on Birthright Israel NEXT’s blog, Alef and can be found here Next Dor’s 5th Question We’ve asked Jewish educators and organizations all over North America to add a fifth question to the Seder – one that will inspire us to make Passover meaningful for today’s Jewish world. Find out more about our 5th Question project. Read More »

This story was just sent out by STL Jewish Federation Exec Barry Rosenberg and I thought it was pretty relevant to a lot of the issues being faced in the Jewish community, but also in the larger community in St. Louis (and I’m sure in a few other places as well). Read More »

Birthright has become more ubiquitous than Bar Mitzvahs, but what about those young adults for whom that 27th birthday rolled around, and Birthright eligibility disappeared? Not to worry, the Rubin Israel Experience is a free 10-day trip for 27-40-year-olds who’ve never been to Israel. Funded by Pam and Ron Rubin, the primary supporters of St. Read More »

Sure, Israelis are a bit of a fetish, particularly amongst American Jews (just start a a Google Image Search for Israeli Soldier, and it helpfully suggests Hot Israeli soldier, and Israeli soldier girl.) Maxim magazine went so far as to dedicate a whole photo-shoot to them. Read More »

An El Al flight had just rolled to a stop on the runway at Lod airport near Tel Aviv. In it sat a young African-American man, looking out the window.“Ow wow, we’re here,” he thought to himself. “Now what?”It was June of 2007, and Yisrael Moshe Chaim, who grew up as Marvin Casey of Chesterfield, Missouri, had arrived in his new country. Read More »

Urban revitalization is happening all over the world in a number of different ways. In Israel, a group called New Spirit (Ruach Hadasha) is focusing on young adults as the main catalyst of this process. It just so happens that two of the main people behind New Spirit will be in St. Louis Thursday night . Read More »

Last night, in Detroit, Community Next hosted a town hall meeting. Community Next is Detroit’s online community hub for young adults, and decided to host the meeting in order to figure out what additional resources or opportunities would interest the young adults it serves. Read More »

Over the past year, at an ever-increasing rate, a number of interesting conversations have been taking place about Jewish Community, Jewish communities, and urban renewal. Read More »