Clearly a free lunch dinner isn't enough for some people

There really is no pleasing some people. 

From the instant the J-Blogger's Convention was announced (heck, even when it was still in the rumor stage), people were already criticizing it for what they thought it was... as well as for what they thought it wasn't.

Apparently, having attendance (in person or on-line) open to anyone who cared to register wasn't egalitarian enough for some.  It seems these people wanted engraved invitations... and threw not-so-private pity parties and hissy fits when 'only' an informal email invite was sent.

Then there were those who complained (on their blogs and in the press) that the panels were overwhelmingly composed of right wing religious bloggers and that the conference's entire Raison d'être was to advance that demographic's sinister agenda.

Yet, as free as many were with their criticism, throughout the months of hard work that preceded the convention, none of these nay-sayers stepped up to offer their help or advice to the small handful of dedicated individuals who were tasked with pulling this thing off.

Nobody - not one person -  from among the critics made the slightest effort to bring sponsors on-board who might have influenced the conference's flavor or texture.  Think about that.  Stephen Leavett of WebAds, and a few other people, busted their humps to bring paying sponsors like Office Depot and Sun Microsystems to the table so the convention would have some gravitas... not to mention to ensure that Nefesh B'Nefesh wouldn't be perceived as holding the dinner check for ransom to their 'agenda'.

And while we're on the subject, what the hell is so objectionable about NBN's agenda?  The last I heard, bringing Jews to Israel was supposed to be a good thing.  Consistently bringing large numbers of well educated, fiscally-established Jews to Israel who can contribute to the economy in this generation instead of having to wait until the next, is an incredible windfall for the Jewish State.    Having more than 95% of such immediately productive and industrious Jewish immigrants actually stay in Israel is unprecedented!

One pundit accused NBN of screening potential immigrants so that mostly right wing religious Jews would make aliyah... and of encouraging new olim to eschew 'consensus communities' within Israel 'proper' in favor of settlements outside the 'green line'.  What utter nonsense!

Another blogger accused NBN of being "deceitful" in the way they selected the panelisst for the convention.  Aside from not asking him to speak, he felt that NBN had conspired to stack the panels with right wing Messianists.  Mind you, this accusation was leveled after the members of the two panels - containing a fairly eclectic group of bloggers - had already been announced and published.  Not only that, but several bloggers (including Dov Bear and Jack) who would have added even more diversity to the forum, had already declined NBN's invitation to fly to Israel for personal reasons.

I came home from the Convention full of both positive energy and constructive criticism. 

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, having met dozens of people I only knew from their writing.  I got to participate in both panels... and a former (and perhaps future) Israeli Prime Minister walked in during my remarks, shook my hand and sat down to listen to what I had to say.  Where I come from, that's a memorable evening!

But I also came away from the convention with lots of clear ideas about where things had not been well managed, and in some cases had gone quite wrong.

For instance, as much as securing the participation of a former Prime Minister was undeniably a feather in the cap of the convention organizers, they obviously didn't prepare him for the visit.  Mr. Natanyahu should have been prepped so that he could have crafted his remarks to be more inclusive of the incredibly diverse physical and virtual audiences he was addressing, instead of holding forth as though he was speaking to a Likud rally in Dimona.  He has both kinds of speeches in his bag... it was just a matter of a little advance prep on the part of Nefesh B'Nefesh.

The same can be said about the length and scope of Bibi's remarks.  He should have been told that he had 10-15 to talk about his vision of blogging's role in the Jewish and Israeli media landscape.  Full stop.  Again, he wasn't properly prepared by the organizers, and as a result, ended up using up time that most people would have rather seen allotted to the panel discussions and Q & A periods.

As I read the various post-convention blog wrap-ups, I became sadder and sadder... and most of my positive energy evaporated. 

One guy, who I'd seen smiling as he enjoyed an evening of free food, drink and entertainment among people he would not otherwise have ever had the opportunity to meet en masse, chose to title his morning-after post "The Failed 2008 Jewish Bloggers Conference".  He wrongly assumed that NBN's "...aim was to bring together 20 to 30 bloggers in order to discuss how blogging can be used to help with Israeli hasbara ("public relations")." , and went on to make a bunch of random criticisms of the event, less than 50% of which were even close to being fair or accurate.

Others were closer to the mark in their criticisms, but ignored the big picture; specifically that no matter how off schedule, disorganized or somewhat off-balance the conference may have been, someone (actually, a whole bunch of someones), had expended a lot of time and effort to make it happen... and it hadn't cost a single blogger a red cent! 

Nefesh B'Nefesh came into existence because a few people were troubled by the trends they were seeing in western Aliyah and decided to do something about it.  North American immigrants were arriving in dribs and drabs, ill-prepared by their well-meaning Israeli shlichim for the extent of the culture shock... and an alarming percentage of these brave, patriotic idealists were going back where they'd come from with their dreams unfulfilled and shattered.

The hallmark of NBN's efforts has been their willingness to try new and untested methods, and to take calculated risks.  They found independent funding from non-traditional sources among American Christian groups who were Israel's natural, yet largely untapped, allies.  When the source of that money offended the sensibilities of certain influential parties, NBN went in another direction and re-framed the philanthropy of American Jewry for Israel from a paternalistic sympathy/guilt check for victims, to a venture capital pitch for building modern Israel one immigrant at a time.

Throughout its existence Nefesh B'Nefesh has been unafraid to try new things and explore new opportunities... anything, so long as it lined up with their goal of bringing American Jews - the modern incarnation of the wealthy, comfortable Babylonian Jews - back to Israel.  Where Ezra and Nechemia had been largely unsuccessful, NBN has far more tools at their disposal to try to dislodge North Americans from their comfortable suburban Diaspora.  And for better or worse, they are also unafraid to employ new tools... even when they don't fully understand them.

Several bloggers made the observation that the NBN staff seemed puzzled by the bloggers, and that they didn't seem to understand our medium.  This is probably true to some extent.  But NBN didn't try to strong-arm anyone, and to my knowledge never asked any of the panelists, moderators or participants in their flights to adhere to any 'party line'.  They simply said "Here is an opportunity to see what we do, from the inside.  Write what you feel."

Even the topics for the panels were left intentionally vague. 

The first panel discussion was designed to appeal to small and medium sized bloggers who wanted to grow their 'brand', build traffic and make a name for themselves.  I have no doubt that had Bibi's shpeil been kept to a reasonable length, the Q & A session for that panel would have brought out some excellent tips, ideas and strategies from both the panelists and audience members.  As it was, we only got to deliver our opening remarks and hear a token (3, if I remember correctly) number of questions.

The Second panel was called 'Building Israel one post at a time'.  Some took this to mean 'promoting' Israel (i.e. doing hasbara for Israel... or perhaps for NBN).  I took it very differently and crafted my talk accordingly. 

I understood it to mean that the sum of our blog posts - meaning not just mine, but also those of people who are very different kinds of Jews/Israelis - combine to create a large mosaic-like picture of how Israel appears to the outside world.  With that latter understanding, I honestly thought that the point of the panel was to dispel the idea that a single sort of blogging about Israel was right or wrong.  Rather, that the J-blogoshere, with its incredible diversity, was successfully presenting a rich, nuanced and above all, honest panoramic 'film' of Israel and Israelis.   In the past (by way of comparison), even Israel's most strident and well-informed supporters had only glimpsed caricatures of noble victim-hood and clichéd postcards from 'the holy land'.

It's now well past 4 AM... nearly a day and a half after the Convention... and I'm still more sad than angry over the uncharitable things people have had to say about the event.

Maybe Nefesh B'Nefesh was naive to try to embrace our 'hobby' or 'community' (whichever view you hold) before fully understanding what it is we do.  But that naiveté was never accompanied by heavy-handedness or demands for any kind of alliance or conformity. 

Someone pointed out to them that ten thousand conversations a day were taking place on blogs and comment boards related to Israel and Judaism, and they thought to themselves, "I wonder if these people realize the potential they have at their fingertips".

They invited us inside their world without preconditions.  The gave us an oleh-eye view of the most emotional and potentially traumatic part of their work, and asked us to honestly report what we saw.

They threw a party for us - without even fully understanding who we are.  They didn't place any conditions or restrictions on the attendees or press who showed up, and placed no demands on the panelists or presenters who spoke. 

They laid out a nice spread of food and drink for the people who showed up in person, and paid G-d knows what for the bandwidth to be able to beam the event out live over the web to over a thousand virtual attendees.  They arranged for an articulate member of the foreign ministry to address the crowd and even managed to have a former leader of our country show up. 

Bibi wasn't just Likud's Prime Minister when he was in office.  He was Israel's Prime Minister... just as Olmert, for better or for worse, is also Israel's leader.  Heck, if they'd gotten Yossi Beilin to show up, that too would have been a coup.  No, I don't agree with much of what he has to say, but he is a very bright man who I will likely never meet... and I would have welcomed the opportunity to sit in the same room with him and ask him what he thinks bloggers should be doing.

But for all the effort and planning that went into this event, it wasn't enough. 

Clearly things could have been done differently... almost certainly better.  But what about us?  As guests, didn't we have some responsibility to our hosts?

We all showed up, ate their food, drank their drinks, burned up their bandwidth, used their nicely appointed office to network and meet friends; old and new.  And when we'd had our fill and our fun, we went home, turned on our computers and proceeded to trash the only host that - purely because of who we are and what we do - has ever bothered to invite us out as a group.

They didn't expect any of us to 'put out' on the first date.  Heck, in dating terms, Nefesh B'Nefesh was the perfect gentleman... not even asking for a chaste peck on the cheek for all they'd done.  All they asked was that we show up and help them, and each-other, to better understand this quirky (qwerty) medium.

Clearly, that rarest of commodities; a free lunch dinner, just isn't enough for some people.