Jewish Organizations Using Twitter to Strengthen Relationships and Built Their Case
Twitter, the “microblogging” platform where users can post updates of 140 characters or less, in making inroads in the Jewish community. Many organizations are using this tool to open communication channels with their constituents, building relationships and in some cases making the case for funding through their regular posts.
I’ve written in the past about Twitter (IDF and Digital Intimacy). In this challenging economy, others are finding that with no fixed costs and just a bit of time, they can spread their message through a very networked and connected audience. Tapping into these viral networks is powerful. For example, yesterday Clay Shirky, NYU professor and author of Here Comes Everybody was a guest on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. When @TOTN (@ denotes a Twitter username, and TOTN is the username, standing for Talk of the Nation) tweeted that he would be the guest, 9 other people that I follow “retweeted” the message within one hour. In this way, not only the 2469 people who follow @TOTN got the message, but easily over 25,000 others did as well.
Below is a list of a few Jewish organizations using Twitter. If you are, please add your Twitter username in the comments so we can follow you. And please also share other Jewish organizations you’ve found on Twitter, or other organizations/people whom you think use the platform effectively, and why.
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@URJ — Union for Reform Judaism Sample tweets:
The only review of media coverage on issues of religion and state in Israel.
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.
Sorry forgot to mention Religion and State in Israel’s twitter name is @religion_state
@jwaonline (http://twitter.org/jwaonline )
This is a neat way for us to provide one stream that touches on everything we are doing – much more effective, we think, than trying to capture it one a web page. So you get everything from blog posts and new pages, snippets of projecs we are working on, headlines from “This Week in History” and more. Our goal? To try to convey the diversity of Jewish Women’s stories in North American and Canadian history, including current thoughts and events, lesson plans for educators, and anything else that seems shareable. Sample recent tweets:
Jan 10, 1949 – Gertrude Berg’s “The Goldbergs” premieres on television. http://tinyurl.com/9wtuy3
Editing a memory of ethnomusicologist Henrietta Yurchenko. Thank you Mark Slobin and Judith Cohen. Have ordered her memoir!
Coming Mar 1 – “Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.” Not a Jewish women’s wikipedia, different. 2000 bios to start.
Tu B’Shvat in one month: sunset Feb 8. New at Jewish Women’s Archive – Jewish women in environmental activism – http://tinyurl.com/9329be
http://twitter.com/torahtweets
the Kavana Cooperative (in Seattle) just launched Kavana Torah Tweets – Torah in 140 characters or less.
As a cooperative – the tweets will distill the weekly study that happens Wednesday nights in our Living Room Learning.
Rabbi Hillel, proved that even deep Torah content can fit within tweet parameters. When asked over 2000 years ago to explain the Torah while the requestor stood on one foot, he took the challenge and came up with the ultimate and probably original tweet: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn”(122 characters, including spaces).
UJC’s http://www.twitter.com/jewishevents / sampling of postings
Today in Jewish History (1950) After years of alternately helping Zionist dream and supporting Arabs, Britain formally recognizes Israel
Solid new posting on our Voices from Sderot blog by Israeli soldier Yoav B, comparing Sderot to Tel Hai: http://www.ujc.org/blog.asp...
UJC/Fed video promoting ‘2 minutes of silence’ for Yom Hazikaron on April 28 at 11 am http://tinyurl.com/cs6wch
RT @jewishsf Clock ticking on S.F. Maccabi Games’ quest for host families
Congrats on spiffy blogging re Harman case by JTA’s Ron Kampeas (@kampeas) from this JTA alum. Read it! http://tinyurl.com/c6evu6
My wife Miriam and I invite you to join in celebrating our 52nd year of marriage by following our blogart project “Torah Tweets: A Postdigital Biblical Commentary as a Blogart Narrative” at http://torahtweets.blogspot.com. During each of the 52 weeks of our 52nd year, we post six photographs reflecting our life together with torah tweet captions that relate the weekly torah reading to our lives, past and present.
binghillel