By the day of the final exam (Monday, March 15), you will complete a final project in which you describe and analyze a website related to some aspect of Jewish identity. The goal of this project is to explore how Jewish identities are constructed and broadcast in the twenty-first century, and how these identities might relate to other contemporary or historical versions of Jewishness that we have examined in class. You must choose a website to evaluate by the beginning of week 8.
The written report on your final project should be eight-ten (8-10) pages long, double-spaced: this does not include any graphics, images, or other nontextual materials you may decide to append to your report (do not print out ten pages from a website, staple them together, and turn them in). Use a reasonably sized font (such as Times New Roman, 12-pt.) and keep your margins at no more than 1.25" all around. No spacing games, please.
More specific information for the final research project can be found below, but in general you should choose a website concerned with some formation of Jewish group identity and evaluate how this group "broadcasts" its Jewish identity to others. (Note that I want you to find a website that represents some group: I do not want you to evaluate individuals' webpages.) In these 8-10 pages you should try to answer the following questions:
What kind of Jewish group is being represented on this site? (Religious? Cultural? Political? Social?)
What kind of audience is envisioned by this website? (Jewish? Non-Jewish?)
What is the goal of this website? (To inform? To preach? To provide resources?)
You should also engage with the web aesthetics of this page: is it professional? Amateurish? Functional? Confusing? How does the internet affect religious representation?
You may use outside resources for this project (there will be some books on reserve relating to religion and the internet; you may also find books or articles in the library), but your main goal should be to engage with this specific representation of Jewish identity, and analyze it using the tools of the academic study of religion gained in this course.
Below you will find a list of possible websites to explore for your final project; these sites are merely suggestions, and I encourage you to get out there on the web and choose your own website. Reminder: You must have a website cleared with the professor by the beginning of Week 8.
In choosing a website, you should ask the following questions:
Does this website speak for a coherent group, organization, association, or other communal Jewish identity?
Anyone with a little money and bandwidth and time on their hands can create a website and claim that they speak for a "group": poke around the site, make sure that this really represents the viewpoint or identity of a real group, a coherent group, and not one or two people who are trying to look official, but are really just framing their own personal viewpoints or opinions as that of a (nonexistent) "group."
Does this website address Jewish identity specifically?
Just because a website has been constructed by a Jew, or group of Jews, does not mean that it addresses some aspect of Jewish identity; for example, a website titled "Jews for Universal Health Care" or "The Association of Jewish Screenwriters" may simply be using the Jewishness of the webmasters as a "lure" to construct an entirely different type of community (e.g., people in favor of Universal Health Care; screenwriters who want to pool their resources). By contrast, a political group may have a "Jewish" subgroup (Jews for Wesley Clark, Young Republican Jews) in which Jewishness is central to the group's identity. Your website must take as its organizing principle some aspect of Jewish identity.
Was this website produced by Jews, and not by a non-Jewish group trying to attract Jews?
Some websites--particularly religiously oriented websites--may be about or for Jews, but are not actually constructed by a Jewish group (for instance, a missionary Christian group might put up a website designed to attract Jews and teach them about Christianity; an anti-Jewish group might put up a site entitled "The Truth About Jews" that actually contains nothing but propaganda or information about how to "counteract" Jewish ideas). Since the goal of this project is to explore how Jews configure and "broadcast" their own identities in the twenty-first century, be sure you have found a site that has been put together by a Jewish group or organization.
Apart from these three general criteria, you may explore any website you choose. The process of choosing a website may be difficult--there are thousands upon thousands of eligible pages out there--so begin by considering an aspect of religious studies, or the study of Judaism, that interests you. Think of general categories, such as:
Sects and denominations
Youth activities
Cultural activities
Globalism and Politics
Social Activities
... and so forth
From there, start exploring the web. Some good starting points are:
These are useful sites because they have categorized their directories and make it easier to find a website you are interested in. Simply doing a blanket web search for "Jew + denomination" will get you tens of thousands of hits.
Here are some websites you might choose to explore for your final project
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
You may also choose to explore the website of an single Jewish community; for example, the website of a Reform Temple in Berkeley or a Conservative Synagogue in Greenwich Village in New York City. You can search the world for synagogues according to a variety of criteria (denomination, Ashkenazi or Sephardi, etc.) at synagogues.com.
B'nai Brith Youth Organization
JCCA: Jewish Community Centers Association
You may also choose to explore the website of a particular regional or local branch of a Jewish organization; for example, the website of Camp Ramah in California or the Orange County JCC or the UCLA chapter of Hillel.
You may choose to explore business or commerce sites, as long as you can make the case that they constitute a form of Jewish communal identity (for example: Jewish tourists, Jewish beer-drinkers, etc.).
The "Virtual Shtetl": Yiddish Language and Culture
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Aklah: The Jewish Children's Learning Network
Hadassah: The Women's Zionist Organization of America
The Republican Jewish Coalition
Start by finding the more generally descriptive pages of the website (usually called something like "about us" or "who we are"; also see if there is a "Frequently Asked Questions" or "FAQ" section) to determine what the purpose of this website is. Try to determine what this site is about in the most general sense. Then begin working your way through the major sections of the site and determine how it is organized. Once you have a sense of the site as a whole, read through as much of it as you can. You may want to take notes, or draw yourself a chart outlining the organization of the site, the types of information found on it, and the particular issues, themes, or ideas expressed in it. As you move through the site, pay attention both to content and to form: how easy is it to move from one section to another? Are there cross-references? Can you find information easily, or do you have to dig to get questions answered? What kinds of information are readily available, and what kinds of information seem obscure or unclear?
Think of the website as a little city: what are the major thoroughfares, and what are the back roads? What are the major "landmarks" and what are the tiny, out-of-the-way corners that you stumble across by accident? Try to "map" your exploration of the website and determine its layout and geography. As you move through the site, keep asking yourself: What kind of Jewishness is being portrayed here, to whom does it appeal, and how does it make itself distinctive?
Then think of the website as a type of organism: how would you classify this "animal"? How does it relate to other internet creations? Explore any "links" or "other resources" that the website describes.
Once you feel like you have a sense of what's on this website, and how it is organized, you are ready to move on to the write-up of your final project.
In writing up your analysis of this website, you should create a balance between description, giving an accurate picture of what can be found on this website, and analysis, your own interpretation of what you find there, and how you would categorize this particular image of Jewishness that has been constructed on the internet. Your final paper should pay attention both to format and content. A good way to organize your report is as follows:
1. Aesthetics and web design
Begin by describing the aesthetic qualities of this website. How accessible is the information, how complex is the layout? Does it use a lot of graphics and other nontextual media, such as music? Does it employ complicated internet programming? Does it take a long time to load the page? Are there links or other parts of the web design that are broken, or otherwise nonfunctional? How "user-friendly" is the website? Does it seem professionally designed, or amateurish? Is its design modeled on other, more familiar sites (such as Amazon or Friendster)?
2. Content (sections, pages, etc.)
Then move on to describe the content: what are the major sections of this website? Subsections? Is there an organizing principle, or does information just seem to be thrown out in no particular order? What kinds of information or resources are found on this website? Is it the sort of information or resources you would expect from the name or general description of this site, or is there a disconnect between content and description? How much information is on this site--enough to scroll through in one sitting, or is it so jammed with information that it would take days to sort through? Does there seem to be a hierarchy of content--some ideas or information presented more centrally than others?
3. Analysis
The majority of your paper should be taken up by your own analysis of the website as a site for constructing Jewish identity. Consider how the following major facets are addressed:
a. audience. What kinds of assumptions are made about who will be reading this site? Members of the group constituted by the site? Other Jews, who may not be members of the group but might be interested? Outsiders to this group (Jewish or non-Jewish) who may have questions or concerns about this group's activities? Consider the following categories: inreach, used to describe a set of resources designed to assist members of an "in-group" in becoming better or more active members of that group; and outreach, used to describe a set of resources designed to assist members of an "out-group" either in coming to a better understanding of the "in-group," or in becoming new members of that "in-group." Which category best describes the potential audience of your website? Or are there sections that include both inreach and outreach?
b. community. If this website deals with a specific subgroup of Judaism--a denomination or a special-interest group ("Jewish Lawyers" or "Jewish singles")--does it create affiliations with a broader community of Jews or with Judaism as a larger entity? Or does this webpage seem designed to separate this group from other Jewish groups, by defining itself very particularly, or disavowing relations with other, similar groups ("We're not so-and-so...")? To what outside pages does this internet site provide links? Do these internet links suggest more substantive "links" or a larger sense of Jewish identity or community?
c. effectiveness. How good is this website at accomplishing its goals? What are its goals? To inform? To assist? To persuade? Is it defensive--seeking to argue against negative stereotypes? Is it "missionizing"--attempting to persuade others to join its cause or central goal? What tools does this website use to accomplish its goals, and how effective do you think these tools are at getting this task accomplished? Imagine you are the "target audience" for this website: would you find it useful and effective? Or are there aspects to this website (either in terms of format or content) that work against its goals?
As this brief outline shows, the majority of your paper should be spent in analysis of this website, always returning to the central question: What kind of Judaism or Jewish identity is bring broadcast by this site, and how does it fit into broader definitions of Jewish identity? You may use some outside resources (particularly resources used in this class: the textbooks or class lectures) to consider these broader questions, but use any and all outside resources very sparingly. The meat of this project should be your own original analysis of Jewish identity as found on the internet.
You may include images or other attachments with your paper, but the bulk of it should be your own analysis and report.
Cite the website by URL (internet address). For example:
The BBYO explicitly aligns itself with Zionism, as when the organization states in its Mission Statement that one of its goals is to "help Jewish youth develop a commitment to the State of Israel and K'lal Yisrael" (http://www.bbyo.org/mission/).
Also, make sure the home page of the website you are discussing is given at the beginning of your report.
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