While the 1,000 or so participants at the G.A. spent the day at site visits that showcased the projects here in Israel funded by the federation system, JTA Director of Digital Media (DDM) Dan Sieradski and the Fundermentalist used the day for video production and writing — and we also had a lengthy interview at the King David Hotel with Adam Bronfman, which we filmed and will show up on the Fundermentalist on Wednesday most likely.
We also took the time to check out the PresenTense Institute in the German Colony neighborhood of Jerusalem. The PT institute is a two-month old open space where Jewish innovators can work and collaborate — and can crash for a few nights if need be.
The space, which is the brainchild of American ex-pats Ariel Beery and Aharon Horowitz, is meant to spur a free exchange of ideas to build a modern Jewish world that fully capitalizes on the social networking era. Long term, PresenTense, which also runs an “open source” magazine and a bevy of workshops and lecture series — and which offers consulting services — would like to open pods such as the one in J-town in every city internationally where Jews work.
The DDM (or the blogger formerly known as Mobius) and I worked out of the J-town pod for a few hours, and got the chef’s tour from Beery.
Mobius — who in his previous digital life founded Jewschool.com and OrthodoxAnarchist.com — and Beery have had a longstanding blogger beef. It was about as much e-animosity as any two people can have. Tonight they took a major step towards peace. Change is possible. Yes they did.
