From Newport to Coventry, it's the new dance craze sweeping the Northeast Kingdom
Step aside, Snood. Stand back, Seterra. Scram, Scrabulous. There’s a new addictive online game that everyone is playing! People are getting hooked by the Mandel Fellows in Jewish Education Game, sitting in front of their screens for hours.
There isn’t much in the way of instructions, but just start playing and you can figure it out pretty quickly. Not to toot my own horn too much, but I got up to Level 12. But then I got stumped. Has anyone figured out how to beat that level? Drop me a line if you do.
Nope, I can’t figure out how to get past the orcs in level 9. Think there are cheat codes up yet?
I don’t get it. The people who wind up in the intersection between the three realms are the people the Mandel Center should invite to apply for its fellowship? What’s there to be “creative” about?
In addition to being confusing, I find this weird, off-putting, arrogant, and just plain YUCK. To wit:
1) It’s totally uncool, not to mention highly unprofessional, to email out lists of Jews and ask other people to pass judgment on them.
2) This Jewish list-making stuff has to stop. It keeps the focus on status and prestige and who’s in or out, rather than on the everyday hard work of sustaining Jewish life and doing God’s work in the world.
3) Of course it’s important to recognize people’s hard work and accomplishments. But these lists mask the fact that there are hundreds of stellar leaders– professional and non– working steadily and effectively and often quietly for the community and the world. These lists make it sound as though it’s only the ones who’ve caught the media’s attention who are going to define or save us. I’d take a Joelle Novey or an Aaron Dorfman over a Michael Bloomberg or a Diane von Furstenberg any day.
Don’t get me wrong– many of those who made the lists certainly belong there. But let’s not lull ourselves into thinking that 10 or 50 individuals are going to save the American Jewish community singlehandedly. And especially not when they represent a totally gender-skewed vision of the American Jewish community.
Having lived in Newport, VT for three years (At that time, I was one of three Jews living there), I did like the headline. The game, not so much. It would be helpful if there was a brief bio of each somewhere, but that would be like asking for cheat codes, now wouldn’t it?
When I was there, the Jews numbered in the hundreds if not thousands!
I don’t get it at all and I don’t think I’m interested in investing the time to figure it out. Basically everyone fell into the category of “entrepreneur” (I didn’t get to the rabbis). And I didn’t recognize basically anyone on Heeb’s list. It made me feel like a loser and outsider. Whereas Scrabulous allows me to demonstrate my awesomeness.