Kesher Talk

< link rel="DCTERMS.isreplacedby" href="http://www.keshertalk.com/" >

Friday, August 08, 2003

Another anniversary. Tomorrow is my one year anniversary of joining Kesher Talk. I began posting on the first of Ellul, an auspicious date for new beginnings. (Since 5762 was a leap year in the Jewish calendar, Ellul begins about three weeks later in the Gregorian calendar than last year - it will fall on August 29, 2003.)

Since I began writing for this blog, I have seen a war begin and end, domestic political alliances shift, several people shut down and restart blogs, and various contributors to Kesher Talk come and go. I have enjoyed several heated interblog arguments on religion and politics. I got my first and only hate mail. I wrote a bit about my Jewish and secular life in New York and visits to my former home in Austin. I surfed the length and breadth of the blogosphere.

In the past year KT has come to be associated more with my name than that of our founder Howard Fienberg, who has retreated to the background for employment reasons. But many thanks to Howard for starting the blog and building it into a respected presence before I got here.

Some accomplishments: I organized a blogburst on the 30th anniversary of the Munich massacre which was linked by WSJ Best of the Web, and write frequently about Israel, dispelling myths, spreading good news, mourning tragedies, arguing strategy, and exploring unconventional view of the conflict.

I tracked incidents of antisemitism and analyses of same. I broke the story and tracked Michael Lerner's confrontation with ANSWER, which precipitated an Instalanche. I contributed to Command Post during the war (but have slacked off since). Shark Blog made KT his first blog of the day. I counted the Omer and wrote something about every Jewish holiday. Currently I am running a weekly series on works which I consider essentially Jewish. I organized and reported on outings of NYC LGF readers, and hosted Carnival of the Vanities (and had some Biblical fun with the title).

Not a bad year.

I am not posting on the actual anniversary because it will be Shabbat, and because I am going to a shabbaton in Connecticutt this weekend - a chance to get out of NYC, go to the beach, daven and learn with congenial people, enjoy home hospitality and meals, all for the price of a train ticket. So no blogging till Sunday night. (If you see any posts, they were pre-dated.)