Today, Thursday, December 29, marks Jewschool’s third anniversary.
It’s been a long, tumultuous road for Jewschool in these last years. We’ve had our high points and our low points. We’ve had our moments of glory and our moments of doubt. It’s been a long, strange trip, as the say.
So I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our contributors over the years, and all of our readers, for making Jewschool the spectacular entity it is, and to express my gratitude by desperately grovelling for your money.

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What is Jewschool? What do we do? And why do we matter?
Jewschool provides a public forum, and creates public spaces via real-world events, where young Jews can discuss cultural, religious and political issues in a welcoming, non-coercive environment. Jewschool presently boasts 50,000 readers per month, with over 13,000 return visitors confirmed monthly.
Jewschool, and its attendent projects such as Orthodox Anarchist and the soon-to-come Mazal Tov Cocktail, help disenfranchised Jewish youth connect with their Jewish heritage by exhibiting the spectrum and plurality of Jewish belief and practice. Here are some snippets from e-mails we’ve received:

Forgive me, but I can’t get over your website. It’s amazing! I have no idea who you are, that’s okay with me (haha), I’m just so happy to know you exist. That’s all.
—Sasha, Nevada
I found your blog about a month ago and it’s my favorite thing in the world. Somehow I never stumbled on it until now. It really has changed my relationship with Judaism and wrestling with levels of observance and Jewish politics to know there’s chevra I relate to. Thanks for the two million projects you’re involved with & for everything you do and for writing about it afterwards.
—Amy, Ohio
I’m writing you to thank you for showing that it’s possible to be Jewish and also to be opposed to what’s going on with the occupation. Your writings are so heartfelt and thoughtful. Even when you go on about religion and God (things I cannot relate to) I find your writings personally very moving. One of your recent posts actually made me cry, and was the inspiration for me writing you now. I think what you’re doing is awesome. I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog and following your journeys, physical and spiritual.
—Bill, New York
I’m grateful to you for paving inroads to help further perpetuate the core Jewish ideal of “achdut.” As is echoed in Bereshit (11:11) and elsewhere, the world was diversified into numerous disparate languages/peoples for the purpose of reaching a stronger reunification. You’re doing just that!
—Eli, Wisconsin

Jewschool supports independent Jewish culture, providing promotional services and sponsorship to organizations and publications such as Jewish Funds for Justice, The New York Jewish Music & Heritage Festival, LimmudNY, Heeb, Mimaamakim, BangItOut.com, JDub Records, Zeek, New Voices Magazine, Modular Moods, Jews in the Woods, Kol Zimrah, and Storahtelling.
Matzat, Jewschool’s parent organization, has also assisted with several initiatives to promote Israeli culture including Zion B’Ayin, Metal Israel, Caput58, and Maarav.
Matzat is working to heal the rifts between Israel’s diverse cultural communites by creating engagement opportunities for Israelis and Palestinians to meet and share experiences around their common interests. Our event series Corner Prophets has drawn hundreds of participants over the last year.
Matzat also supports non-profit Jewish organizations and independent Jewish artists, musicians, authors & filmmakers, by providing low-cost and oftentimes free web design and hosting services. In the last year, Matzat has created an array of websites for organizations such as Israel21C (Israelity), Steven I. Weiss (Canonist and CampusJ), The American Zionist Movement (Blogs of Zion), The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors & Their Descendants (Together), Kehillat Yakar, ATZUM, and Task Force on Human Trafficking.
Jewschool has also been celebrated in the Jewish press. Its editor, Dan ‘Mobius’ Sieradski has been hailed by The Jewish Standard as a “Jewish Renaissance Man,” was dubbed the “Leader of the New School” in an August 2005 profile in Tikkun magazine, and was recently counted among a group of “fresh-faced iconoclasts…redefining American Judaism” by B’nai Brith Magazine. Jewschool has received mention in The Washington Post, The New York Post, The Jerusalem Post, The Forward, Haaretz, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, The Jewish Standard, Kol HaIr, and The JTA. Jewschool has also been deemed one of the most important online Jewish cultural enterprises by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Ari Kelman, both of whom research Jewish identity and affiliation for major Jewish organizations such as the Bronfman Philanthropies and the UJA Federation.

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All of this has transpired within the last year-and-a-half and without a drop of outside funding. To be quite honest, I have bankrolled all of these efforts out of my own pocket with the pittance I earn from doing freelance web development projects, our advertising sales (which, by the way, are the lowest rates imaginable for a website with our traffic — yay Jewish market!), and our t-shirt sales.
Our server cost alone is $250 month (which is only a fraction of our general technology overhead, let alone my rent & utilities, our post office box, promotional materials, legal fees, etc.) Considering my current income and the flightiness of potential funders (who just don’t seem to get what everyone else does), we’re in serious danger of having to reduce our output in order to stay afloat. So I’m asking for your help. If you support the work we’re doing, please, dig deep and show us your love.
Donate to Matzat today — an organization which is truly, and quite visibly, busting its hump for the Jewish community.