Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Ever since I started this blog way back in February, 2003, I’ve tried to get the Jewish press more interested in covering Jewish blogs. I’ve suggested to more editors and reporters more story ideas than you could shake a stick at. I think Jewish media have largely missed the boat on Jewish blogging. There are tons of them out there and they’re passing under the radar of much of the Jewish community.

For several years, I’ve tried to get a reporter to write a story about those who blog about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A few were interested but never followed up. Some never bothered to reply to my queries.

The corollary of all this is that Tikun Olam has largely been ignored by the mainstream Jewish media–that is until recently. With articles in the Jewish Forward and an interview with Jewish Week, I’ve crept into media consciousness. Now, our local Seattle Jewish paper, JTNews has opened its pages to this blog as well. Dan Levisohn, their assistant editor, spoke with me this week for an interview story which will appear in the coming Friday’s edition. [UPDATE: The piece will actually appear on the JTNews blog, Jew-Ish.com tomorrow (Tuesday) and not necessarily in the pages of the newspaper.] It was a wide-ranging, thoughtful discussion which probed a lot of interesting areas.

To tell the truth, I was even a bit surprised that there wasn’t a more adversarial approach considering that some in the Jewish community find my views quite controversial. And I was thankful that Dan conducted the interview in the way he did without the adversarial questions. I’d half expected to hear him ask me how I respond to the right-wingers who disparage me here and elsewhere. But none of that.

Until now, I’d felt almost invisible as a blogger in my own local Jewish community. I so appreciate Dan’s interest in this blog and his willingness to talk about it in JTNews.