world

Tweaking Tradition

Online project modernizes Jewish texts with today's lingo.

Sue Fishkoff
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

San Francisco

M

organ Friedman loves the way
people talk. He wants others to
love it, too.
The 35-year-old social media entre-
preneur, formerly of Brooklyn, N.Y., and
now living in Buenos Aires, launches new
digital projects like marshmallows from
an air gun.
Pow! Here's Overheardinnewyork.com , a
site for offbeat conversations that his team
of eavesdroppers hears on the streets.
Pffft! Here's Yiddishisms.com , Yiddish
expressions culled from half-remembered
witticisms of his grandmother.
He's got a million of 'em — or a few
dozen, at least.
Now Friedman is taking that same love
of lingo and combining it with his high-
tech know-how to launch Urban Sefer, an
online project aimed at producing crowd-
sourced, slang-filled translations of tradi-
tional Jewish liturgy.
You know, Jewish texts written the way
people talk.
"When these documents were written,
they were written in the common language,
the way people spoke," Friedman told JTA.
"But today when I read these ancient docu-
ments, I need to sit and think in order to
translate it into my language. It requires
intellectual work."
And that, as everyone knows, is not what
young people like to do.
"Let's take these traditions handed down
for thousands of years and make the same
points, but do it in the language that's part
of our everyday life,' Friedman says.
The folks at the Jewish New Media
Innovation Fund seem to agree.
In March, the group awarded Friedman
one of its initial nine grants for new digital
media projects aimed at engaging young
Jews in Jewish life, learning and community.

"These projects share an ability to har-
ness new digital media tools and technolo-
gies that are a large part of young people's
lives today and use them to enhance efforts
to engage young people in Jewish life,"
said Rachel Levin, associate director of
the Righteous Persons Foundation, which
joined the Jim Joseph Foundation and the
Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family
Foundation in sponsoring the new fund.
The nine finalists were chosen from more
than 300 applicants vying for a total of
$500,000 to be disbursed over the next 12
months, the fund's first year.
Urban Sefer is Friedman's first Jewish
project. He was raised Orthodox in Great
Neck, N.Y., so he knows his Jewish ritual, he
says, though he fell away from religion after
his bar mitzvah.
In college, Friedman was an English
major, and he says his idea of a good time
is spending one weekend a month reading a
Shakespeare work he doesn't know well.
"I'm the least cool guy ever," he says.
"I like reading old books and listening to

Stroll and Roll Event
Fights Rett Syndrome
The third annual for Rett event will take
place at West Bloomfield's Marshbank
Park 11 a.m. Sunday, May 15. Registration
begins at 10.
Sandy and Jeff Kopelman of Franklin
founded the event, with the help of their
daughter Lisa Fenberg. The Kopelmans
suffered the loss of their daughter Rachel
to Rett syndrome, a devastating neurologi-

cal developmental disorder, in 2000 at age
20. Rachel was diagnosed when she was 7
and lived a life of challenge and inspira-
tion.
The event will raise funds and aware-
ness for the International Rett Syndrome
Foundation, which develops research
toward finding a cure.
The walk/stroll will be about a mile
in duration and is wheelchair accessible.
Following will be a lunch and activities for

Morgan Friedman with an earlier work

allowed users to construct their own per-
sonalized Haggadahs using a variety of
sources, including user-generated content.
That project folded in 2004 when fund-
ing ran out — its operation was more or
less taken over by Jew It Yourself — but
it paved the way for similar initiatives,
including the Open Siddur Project and
Build a Prayer, which allow users to
construct personalized prayer books,
and the newly launched Haggadot.com ,
another recipient of a Jewish New Media
Innovation Fund grant for 2011-12.
Friedman doesn't know the people
working on the other projects. He's pretty
much alone in Buenos Aires, and says he's
just putting up his project on the Internet,
hoping it will attract a community of like-
minded younger Jews eager to harness
their creative energies together.
After the Haggadah, Friedman says he'd
like to take on a rewrite of the Bible, start-
ing with Ecclesiastes, and then move on to
the Shabbat prayer book.
people tell jokes:"
"If there was ever a biblical work made
The first text Friedman is tackling is the
for modern slang, it's Ecclesiastes," he says.
Passover Haggadah. Two years ago, he and
"It's about a guy who has everything but is
his Argentinean girlfriend dashed off a ver-
looking for meaning, so he goes out, gets
sion in Spanish slang as a lark. It proved so
drunk all the time, has sex with a lot of
popular among Jews in Argentina that last
women — nothing works.
year he decided to do the same thing using
"Finally he realizes that enjoying little
English slang.
moments with friends, that's the real
But instead of sitting down and writing
it himself, Friedman wants to involve lots of meaning. This is timeless wisdom! The
people. So he's taking the project online and power of modern English vernacular is
made for it."
inviting anyone who's interested to sign up
Just because he's focusing on street talk
and take part — crowd sourcing, in mod-
doesn't mean Friedman is taking his sub-
em vernacular.
ject lightly. This is serious work, he insists,
"What's a modern way to do this? Crowd
sourcing," he says in typical I'll-answer-my- meant to draw young Jews back to connect
with their tradition. He's working with
own-questions-thank-you Friedman style.
a rabbi "to make sure it's kosher" and is
"The epic stories in the Bible used classic
investing a lot of his own money.
methods of telling stories, but today we tell
And because these translations are
stories in film, on TV, online. If Moses were
being crowd sourced, the outline he has in
alive today, he'd be making movies:"
his mind may or may not pan out.
Urban Sefer isn't the only open-source
"I don't know what the final version will
Jewish text project out there. The granddad-
be like," he says, "but the website will be
dy of the genre is Open Source Haggadah,
live in a month or two. We'll see then." 1 1
an online project launched in 2002 that

children and adults.
Sponsors, donations and participants
are needed. Visit www.stroll4rett.com for
more information. To donate online, visit
www.firstgiving.com/rettsyndrome/event/
michiganstrollathon.

Healing Service
At Adat Shalom
Adat Shalom Synagogue will hold a
Healing Service from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.,

Thursday, May 12, on the bimah in the
main sanctuary.
Rabbi Aaron Bergman, playing his gui-
tar, will join Rabbi Herbert Yoskowitz in
a guided meditation to bring healing to
anyone who feels the need. Whether you
are looking for healing in your own life or
the life of loved ones, this service will uplift
you with prayers and music to enhance
and heal your spirit and your being.
For information, call (248) 851-5100.

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