28 April 25 • 2019
jn
28 April 25 • 2019
jn
ALLISON JACOBS DIGITAL EDITOR
with Jeremy Shuback
Schmoozing
The JN chats with the former animation director at BimBam.
B
imBam (founded as G-dcast) ended active
operations this spring after 11 years of cre-
ating groundbreaking Jewish content online.
Its library of more than 400 original videos will
remain online as the Union of Reform Judaism
(URJ) will integrate nearly all of BimBam’
s content
into its website.
BimBam was founded by Sarah Lefton in 2008.
She wanted to share her Jewish learning expe-
riences online, through short animated videos
featuring teachers, rabbis and artists she admired,
including former Detroiter Jeremy Shuback, 34,
who worked as the animation director and video
producer at BimBam from 2012 to 2019, directing
more than 100 videos that have been featured in
many Jewish film festivals and seen in classrooms
across the country.
Q. Where did you grow up?
JS: I was part of the B’
nai Israel community and
lived in West Bloomfield. My best friends growing
up were Dan Horwitz (a rabbi in Metro Detroit)
and Josh Foster, who is now a rabbi in Cleveland.
It’
s funny to me how many friends I have who
have gone on to become rabbis. I went to Hillel
Day School, and my parents were always involved
in the community.
Q: What were some of your early career
moves?
JS: I went to school at Syracuse University for
illustration. I knew people were doing animation
out in Los Angeles, so I moved there. Right out
of college I was doing web design, but I swore it
off thinking, “I didn’
t move out to LA to do web
design!”
The weekend I swore off doing web design I
got two calls — one from a web design company
and another from an animation company, where
I ended up working. After that I did some anima-
tion internships. Then, for five years I worked as
a title sequence designer and background painter,
doing matte paintings for movies like Don’
t Mess
with the Zohan and Date Night.
Q: What was your reaction when getting the
job offer at BimBam?
JS: Six years and nine months ago I got for-
warded the job posting for BimBam. As part of
the submission, they wanted a script proposal for
Tisha b’
Av or Ruth. Instead, I sent in a video of me
rapping about Tisha b’
Av I made in an hour, and it
turned out pretty well! Sarah Lefton hired me on
as an associate producer in 2012. I felt it was an
overlap of all the things I’
m good at.
Q: What were some of your initial projects?
JS: I was there for three months and Sarah was
five or six months pregnant. She was essentially
like, “Lead these projects now — I’
m going to go
have a baby.”
The first few projects I started on were four
animated shorts about the Book of Judges, a com-
petition about the Book of Psalms and eScapegoat
(eScapegoat involved a digital goat collecting sins
for Yom Kippur that ended up getting crazy cover-
age in the Wall Street Journal, CNN and NPR.)
The second year the challenge was more lifecy-
cle pieces — videos about birth, baby namings and
topics like, “What is a chupah?”
I also created a Jewish Guide to Helping Your
Friend in Mourning. That was a piece I’
m proud
of. The guide had three sequels, and I formed a
close relationship with David Zinner, the executive
director of the Gamliel Institute, an organization
dedicated to helping people with burial, death and
mourning.
We did another 12 lifecycle pieces the next year,
and the third year we transitioned to Judaism 101.
Then we started covering the holidays and formed
that concept into a cohesive 50-part video set.
jews d
in
the
COURTESY OF JEREMY SHUBACK
An image from Samson: The Final Judge,
illustrated by Nadav Nachmany
Jeremy Shuback
An image from a Shaboom! episode Jeremy directed
COURTESY OF JEREMY SHUBACK
An image from Samson: The Final Judge,
illustrated by Nadav Nachmany
An image from a Shaboom! episode Jeremy directed
!
overlap of all the things I m good at.
Jeremy Shuback