The Jewish Reconnection Project

Between breaks in training yesterday, I was checking my e-mail, and I received a request to check out the first episode of a series someone I've never heard of was putting together on YouTube. It was intriguing enough that I read the whole e-mail, but I assumed it was another publicity request and figured that if I had some time later, I'd check it out. Tonight, I noticed that PsychoToddler had actually posted about it, and trusting his sense of taste, I decided to watch it - and was glad I did. It's definitely an interesting project, and I like the setup: A few people in the States, a few in Israel, having a calm, thoughtful, interesting discussion about living as a Jew in different places vs. Israel and what that's like. It's good, short, to the point, and well put together; I'm very impressed.

Here's the blurb from the e-mail sent to me by its creator, Todd Schecter:

The video is the first in a web-only mini series I produced called the Jewish Reconnection Project. It shows young Jews in New York and Jerusalem talking to each other and sharing how their Judaism affects their lives. It’s meant to give viewers a sense of the diversity of Jews around the world and to let college age people express their own ideas about Judaism. Ultimately, we hope that helping disparate groups of Jews understand each other will make for a stronger, healthier Jewish community.

I also noticed that at least two of the people in the video are familiar to me; it's nice that all the people in the video seem to be well-spoken, normal, down-to-earth types. I wish Todd the best of luck in this project. The website is JewishReconnectionProject.com.