Introducing ShulShopper
Jew It Yourself seeks, first and foremost, to provide the greater Jewish community with entirely free tools and resources conducive to independent Jewish learning and community organizing. It further aims to assist established Jewish communities by offering these same tools and resources, which we believe will reinvigorate constituents’ interest in and commitment to Jewish life by empowering them to take an active role in their local Jewish community.
What is ShulShopper?
Our proof-of-concept, ShulShopper, is an introduction to the overall model for Jew It Yourself, and will demonstrate several of Jew It Yourself’s key concepts.
Set to launch in early February, ShulShopper is a tool which allows individuals to locate congregations (synagogues and independent minyanim) in their local area and to rate and review those congregations.
When a visitor arrives on the ShulShopper website, they are invited to enter the name of their city or their zip code. Upon submission, they will see a list of all the congregations in their area that exist in the ShulShopper database. Visitors can then refine their search by specifying their particular prayer preferences. For example, visitors can specify their denominational preference, whether or not their preferred congregation has an ezrat nashim (a women’s section) or mixed seating, whether or not women can lead services, whether or not the congregation uses musical instruments or amplified sound, whether or not the congregation is wheelchair accessible, and so forth. The search results will then be modified to include only those congregations which suit the visitor’s preferences, and those preferences will be saved to the visitor’s profile.
Upon clicking the name of a congregation, visitors will be taken to a profile page for that specific congregation. Profiles include a “biographical” description of the congregation, “vital statistics” such as the congregation’s denominational and movement affiliations, the type of crowd that frequents that congregation, women’s roles, interfaith family-friendliness, and so forth, as well as the weekly services schedule, and Google Maps enabled location and contact information.
Visitors are invited to participate in the creation and maintenance of each congregation’s profile, much in the way that Wikipedia invites users to participate in the creation of encyclopedia entries. Thus the definition of a specific congregation is put in the hands of the congregation’s constituents and leadership, as opposed to the congregation’s leadership alone.
At the bottom of each profile page is a “Reviews” section, in which visitors can rate and review the congregation and specify that which they like and dislike about the services, thus providing useful information to individuals who are hunting for a resonant prayer experience.
Additionally, visitors can specify whether or not they are members or frequenters of a specific congregation, creating a directory of congregants accessible from the congregation’s profile page.
ShulShopper 2.0
Following the launch of ShulShopper 1.0 (which incorporates all of the functionality described above), we would like to expand the functionality of ShulShopper to incorporate greater social networking features to achieve two ends:
- We would like to provide basic collaborative groupware such as blogs, message boards, event calendars, wikis, and so forth, to be associated with each congregation’s profile. These tools would enable constituents of each congregation to participate in the congregation’s organizational and institutional processes (thereby democratizing the leadership of the congregation), in turn, encouraging more direct community involvement and, thusly, more excitement about participation in a congregation.
Further, by providing these services free of charge, in an environment that caters specifically to religious Jewish communities, ShulShopper will lower the barrier for entry set for established congregations by creating a “safe space” for communities of faith (free from the alienating baggage of communities like MySpace, such as half-naked photos of 17 year-olds, or the trollings of neo-Nazis and Christian missionaries), in addition to offsetting the costs imposed upon congregations that seek to embrace such technology. - If one cannot find a local congregation meeting their personal preferences, the website will invite individuals to locate others in their area with whom they share similar preferences, and, by using the groupware, to establish a new congregation together. This process will be assisted by an interactive online guide to be developed in collaboration with The National Havurah Committee (our fiscal sponsor), as well as the leadership of Kehillat Hadar and Kol Zimrah, two of New York City’s most prominent independent minyanim.
In future releases of ShulShopper, we also intend to incorporate:
- The functionality of The Open Source Haggadah, our first ever proof-of-concept, which would enable congregations to collaboratively create siddurim (prayerbooks) together online. Once completed, a congregation can use the website to generate a PDF of their siddur that can be associated with their congregation’s profile, which congregants can then download, print out, and take to services with them.
- An online database of niggunim (Jewish melodies) which the community can use to create their own particular nussach (tradition of prayer), from which they can generate MP3 playlists that can also be associated with their congregation’s profile, allowing congregants to learn the music of the prayer service before they even show up for services, and for potential congregants to determine whether or not that congregation’s nussach is the right fit for them.
ShulShopper has been built using the Rapid Application Development framework Ruby On Rails, which allows for the continual expansion of the site’s functionality as both the user community’s needs and web technologies evolve. We have, for example, built the site in such a way so as to allow for internationalization in the near future, enabling the site to be used in the native languages of Jewish communities world-wide.
In order to attain these ends, we have selected New Bamboo as our technology partner, the leading Ruby On Rails development firm in the UK. We are pleased to say that New Bamboo understands our vision for this project more so than any other firm we had considered contracting with. This, however, comes at a considerable financial cost one might consider requisite for such understanding and expertise; however, it is one much less than might be expected of, say, a firm that is trying to milk a technologically-ignorant Jewish philanthropy for all it can squeeze out of them.
Onward Towards Jew It Yourself
Eventually, this model will be expanded to cover not only congregations, but Jewish community centers, social action projects, cultural institutions, kosher eateries and so forth. Jew It Yourself Metros will place every Jewish community directly at the fingertips of its constituents, and every Jewish organization at the fingertips of potential constituents.
In addition to providing these community organizing tools, Jew It Yourself will also provide an online beit midrash (house of study) that we believe will radically alter the way the entire Jewish community engages with Jewish text and text learning.
At this time, it is difficult for Matzat to divulge more detailed information about both Jew It Yourself Metros and our online beit midrash because we are deeply concerned about the competitive nature of such initiatives, taking under consideration the fact that some of the proposals we have shared privately with potential funders have made it into the hands of our funding competitors who have more access and reputability than we do.
That said, if you would are interested in contributing financially to Jew It Yourself, and would like to learn more about the project, please feel free to contact me at director at matzat.org.il or to give me a ring at 646-257-3972 to learn more.
wow. this is an awesome resource, a fantastic idea, and props for including indie minyanim!!!
that sounds really awesome! wow. thank you for responding to the questions.
one comment – I would change the term “women’s roles” to “gender roles” or “egalitarian/ non-egalitarian” personally, so as not to create orthodoxy (and men’s roles therein) as the norm.
also – this is so radical, in terms of giving voice to the silent majority, that I think that may be why you may have not gotten fully funded yet.
love it — but “shopping” has consumerist overtones … how about “hopper” ?
I have some questions:
1. What is the incentive for large congregations with established rabbinic leadership to embrace this project? What’s the selling point for a community in which the ones wanting more democratization are the least empowered members of the community?
2. How will this affect congregations where the leadership is more progressive than the membership? I can easily think of situations where right wing trolls use this ‘democratization’ meme to sabotage and undermine the important moral leadership of the rabbi on Israeli-Palestinian peace issues.
3. One congregation I know of has rejected the use of the very tools you are offering, precistely because they don’t want to deal with hostile, negative and unproductive feedback from within and without the community. They would argue, that censorhip and top-down control are essential to prevent the emergence of factions and contentious arguments.
4. Versions of the tools you are offering for the use of congregations are widely available, and the barriers for having your own group-ware, wikis, etc. are going down all the time. Why would a congregation able to afford it’s own tools want to use yours as a portal? It’s a basic rule of marketing that you don’t want to dilute your own PR presence with the logos and identities of other entities not of your choosing.
In conclusion, and while awaiting response to these questions, I think that these tools will be of particular value to those NOT finding a place inside existing congregations, or those inside congregations who might want to form factions to lobby for and against various things. Help us understand your intentions better!
while i share your reservations about the use of consumerist language,
1. shul hopper sounds non-committal. ie., when will you settle down and buy into a community?
2. finding the right synagogue has, in many ways, become a consumer experience, and no resistance on the part of synagogue leadership is going to change this fact. my belief — though, it is certainly not why i chose this name — is that by forcing the consumer paradigm onto synagogues it will force them to compete for congregants and thus lead them to greater accountability and ingenuity.
3. shulshopper is alliterative. sh sh. it’s catchy.
but i have entertained shulhopper… the initial name for the project was shteeblehopper, and our logo was going to be a bunny. sarah is still pushing for it (but that’s cuz she’s obsessed with soft and fuzzy things), but i’d certainly like to hear more community feedback on this before the launch.
1. What is the incentive for large congregations with established rabbinic leadership to embrace this project? What’s the selling point for a community in which the ones wanting more democratization are the least empowered members of the community?
the first and foremost reason any congregation would want to be on shulshopper is because it’s like the yellow pages for synagogues. if someone is visiting your community from out of town, or if someone has just moved to town, if you want them to find your synagogue, you’ll want to be on shulshopper.
in terms of the more interactive/community functions of shulshopper — i do not expect that every congregation will be interested, but i would like to make these tools available for those that are.
as per the “least empowered” — if anything, they’ll be inspired to form a breakaway minyan and use our tools and resources to achieve this end.
2. How will this affect congregations where the leadership is more progressive than the membership? I can easily think of situations where right wing trolls use this ‘democratization’ meme to sabotage and undermine the important moral leadership of the rabbi on Israeli-Palestinian peace issues.
i could never imagine having an open conversation about issues within a congregation as being bad. if the views of the majority of the constituents lean to the right, then so be it. democracy is democracy because it doesn’t always look how you want it to look. if right-leaning congregants stage a coup and the rest of the congregants go for it, that’s the will of the congregation. it’s not our place to dictate which perspectives are legitimate; we can merely hope to facilitate exchanges that lead to progress. in my experience, open, democratic forums usually lead more towards liberal attitudes, than closed, controlled forums.
3. One congregation I know of has rejected the use of the very tools you are offering, precistely because they don’t want to deal with hostile, negative and unproductive feedback from within and without the community. They would argue, that censorhip and top-down control are essential to prevent the emergence of factions and contentious arguments.
and that’s what i would call autocracy and dictatorship — let alone denial and refusal to come to grips with reality — and it is precisely the attitude i hope shulshopper will challenge infinitely.
that said, i don’t approve of hostile/unhelpful/unproductive feedback, and for this reason we have incorporated some moderator controls to help stem any tide of such behavior: all new minyan profiles and edits to existing minyan profiles must first meet moderator approval; any user contributed reviews can be flagged as “inappropriate” for review by the moderator. (moderators will, at the outset, be mostly the jewschool staff, with others added as they prove their skills as contributors of profiles and reviews.)
as per factions and contentious arguments — if your minyan is held together by a thread that thin, it’s time to break into two minyans.
4. Versions of the tools you are offering for the use of congregations are widely available, and the barriers for having your own group-ware, wikis, etc. are going down all the time. Why would a congregation able to afford it’s own tools want to use yours as a portal? It’s a basic rule of marketing that you don’t want to dilute your own PR presence with the logos and identities of other entities not of your choosing.
one, it’s free. two, we’ll be offering javascript “badges” that let you pull content from shulshopper onto your own website. three, future editions of the software will be skinnable. (ie., you can modify your profile page ala myspace and stick your logo on it.)
and don’t forget–within a year or so (g-d willing PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE) the site will be linked to many more features pre-existing services don’t offer, including our online beit midrash, which, i promise you, will stun.
finally, i’ll just add — this tool was originally envisioned as a resource for independent minyanim. but the more i spoke to funders and people in the synagogue world about the project, the more they insisted i expand it to include established synagogues. i’m less concerned about how these institutions will use the product as i am as to how indie minyans will use it. that said, i am open and willing to make the software accommodate both synagogues and indie minyans as much as is possible. you should consider that the most successful web projects are usually the ones that wind up being used in ways the creator hadn’t expected or intended. i’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised by shulshopper’s user base.
great questions by the way. i appreciate the thoughtfulness.
JewGuevera-
You said it and hit it so hard! Well done
Mobius could your statement: “in my experience, open, democratic forums usually lead more towards liberal attitudes, than closed, controlled forums.” be because you tend to travel in progressive circles or that you know your programing is better? please let me know.
Just a reminder that all communities may not wish to be listed. I am thinking specifically of my own community, which specifcally avoided any sort of PR for at least two years as we were two small, fragile and in development to handle this sort of exposure.
I believe there ought to be a way for a community’s “ownership” to remove itself from the site. The last thing a struggling indie minyan that is still defining itself needs is a list of reviews , or a wiki where other people are telling them what it is.
WE started my community for ourselves, not for the public, and while reviews, feedback and other wiki style stuff are awesome ways to create feedback and empower voices, sometimes that is not appropriate. We have moved past our birth pangs, and probably could hang at this point with the site, but I don’t think it will be all roses. I am very concerned about angry folks who don’t like some policy or other spamming our reviews, spamming our wiki and making it very difficult for our true POV to get expressed.
I’m not asking you to defend the tool, M0b, as I know very well how web 2.0 stuff can work well, just to be aware that this is a very real concern and to consider enabling communities, especially barely established ones, to remove themselves from the public eye.
yasher koach. this looks great.
the fact is, most shuls want/need to grow, and will want to be included for that reason if nothing else. if this becomes the place folks go when looking for a shul, they’d be idiots not to be listed.
Mob, your answers helped me understand better. Knowing that this tool was initially developed for indie minyanim, and probably/potential consumers of indie minyanim makes a lot of sense.
I think that this tool is de facto the enemy of established synagogues in the liberal movements, with the exception of new, young and super confident/innovative shuls. Not MY enemy, mind you. I’m not sure I’m against this. But I see the institutional threat this represents, and I’m sympathetic to some of the institutional interests that exist.
Good luck. My prediction is that this will help strengthen a lot of independent efforts, and to some extent this will happen at the expense of established shuls.
j.g.: i wouldn’t be so confident in that assessment. i’ve spoken to quite a number of congregational rabbis who are simply amped about this project. they see it as having great potential for invigorating the interests of their congregants. i think it’s going to be very interesting to watch who this works for and why.
I hope that all reviewing features include prominant dating of entries. The worst thing that I can see happening is that a shul does evolve over time but shoppers have no easy way to see that bad reviews are old.
I’ve been half-jokingly saying we’ve needed Zagat’s for Shuls for years but now it looks like a reality.
In all seriousness, a brilliant idea whose time had come.
“ShulShopper will lower the barrier for entry set for established congregations by creating a “safe space†for communities of faith.”
Not only will it be a space free from missionary trollers, but the existance of such a service has the ability to increase the likelyhood that unaffiliated and uneducated Jews will actually end up with a real congregation rather than falling into a “messianic” missionary trap. You could be saving Jews from idolitry!
Is there a beta we can look at? Screen shots just don’t do it for me…
two weeks deis, and the site goes live, whether with all the intended functionality, or without
Alright, 2 weeks is reasonable. 🙂
I cannot find your current website. Please help!
Thank you………sue