May 27, 2008 | 12:30 pm

Welcome to The Jewish Journal’s new web site

Posted by Dennis Wilen

If you can read this, you’re one of the first visitors to JewishJournal.com 2.0, the happy and shiny new version of The Jewish Journal online.

We finally have a real content management system, which means we’ve added a lot of the Web 2.0 ‘social networking’ tools that finally exploit the two-way, read/write aspects of the WWW.

You can track stories which are most popular, most emailed, or most commented, easily find stories by the same person and more stories on a topic.

There’s more—easier sharing, a state of the art Community Calendar which makes it easy for readers to post events for the community, and much better integration of our audio and video elements.  The blogs are now searchable, and we’ve added a tag cloud and RSS feeds.

That’s all featues and no benefits so let me say it this way:

Our new site is more fun and more useful because we now feature lots more of the secret ingredient for web communities: you!

Take a look around, especially the new section pages (Los Angeles stories, Sports stories, Music stories, etc.) and new features. 

We are especially excited about Hollywood Jew, which will be filled with delicious Industry morsels.

And please comment on stories, check out the forums, share the cool stuff you find with your friends, and let us know what you think of our new look.

We’re still ironing out a few bugs, but on the whole everyone here thinks it’s pretty cool.  We hope you do, too.

Send bug reports to webmaster@jewishjournal.com (we are still having some blog migration issues, thanks) and have a lovely long weekend.

—The Web Guy

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May 22, 2008 | 6:13 pm

VideoJew gets shaved

Posted by Jay Firestone

For the record, I didn't grow a beard for this video. I did it for God.



But in keeping the Omer tradition, I realized this was a tremendous opportunity to educate the world about the promises and immense potential of a truly rewarding Lag B'Omer.

But before I really develop that thought, here's some background on the Omer

49 days of counting between Passover and Shavuot (the holiday which celebrates receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai)

Hundreds of years later, a plague broke out during the Omer, which killed many students of the famous Rabbi Akiva

As a result the Omer is observed with light mourning

This means no parties, weddings, musical instruments or haircuts (shaving included)

On the 33rd of the Omer, the death stopped, which is why for that one day, we're allowed to break our observances and celebrate life.

Lag B'Omer (in English is translated to the 33rd of the Omer

While the majority of Lag B'Omer could be spent at parties, weddings or concerts, when you¹ve been growing hair on your face for over a month, its removal becomes the utmost priority.

As you can see from the video, I'm a new person without all the hair. I feel kempt, organized and in control.

But as happy as I am that its gone, I've never missed something so much in my life, from the way it itched during 80% of my day, to the way it always saved foot particles for a mid-day snack. It's gone now, but I still have another 16 days to nurture its second coming.

Until then, Happy Lag B'omer!

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