Congrats to the Necklace Winner!

First of all, sorry it took me nearly two days to draw a winner ... I've discovered a wacky issue with mobile comments on the blog, and the wacky issue is that you simply can't comment on a mobile device. I attempted to make it happen, it failed, and I'm sorry. In 2016, mobile reigns supreme, and the inability to comment on mobile really bums me out. So. Sorry!

Anyway, congratulations to Mor S. (a Denver friend and most-excellent mama) for winning the giveaway! In case you see this,  Mor, please send me an email at kvetching dot editor at gmail dot com.

In other news: I'm now Facebook "verified" as a personality. Eegads. I'm like, famous or something. Wait, no, I just went through the Facebook Mentions process of verification. But a girl can dream, right?

Shabbat Shalom y'all!

Agunot in the Age of Facebook

I just saw something on my Facebook timeline, and for the first time in my Jewish life it made me stop and wonder about the situation of the agunah and particularly what it means in this new age of technology and the ability to publicly shame someone.

An agunah is a Jewish woman whose husband has not granted her a get, or ritual divorce. A lot of times, a civil divorce has taken place but a religious divorce has not. For a religious Jewish woman, this means she is bound to that man until he grants her the get. He can remarry, and she can't. She's in a horrible status of limbo that there isn't always much to do about other than fight, fight, and fight some more in beth din (religious court) to pressure the man into just letting her go.

The reasons for not granting a get are boundless, and most of the time childish and trivial. It's a power play by men who simply want to be in control of a situation they've lost control of. It's both pathetic and sad.

There are so many women who are living as agunot. Back in the olden days, especially when men started leaving their wives and immigrating here there and everywhere, the Yiddish newspapers would post their photos, names, and where they ditched their wife in the hopes that locals would turn them in to the local religious courts so they'd do the right thing.

Nowadays, it seems, people are turning to other resources, like Facebook and website building to make things happen. On Facebook I spotted Set Gital Free, which is a website made by friends of Gital Dodelson. Her (civil) ex-husband Avrohom Meir Weiss (of the Artscroll Weisses) refuses to grant a get unless all of his demands (of money, visitation with their small child, etc) are met.

The site includes information about Weiss's family, a timeline of events (these people had a wedding night baby, folks, and separated shortly after the child was born, which is a common thing in religious communities, believe it or not), and information about how you can make a difference.

I don't think I'm the kind of person to pick up the phone and berate the family of some idiot who can't man up and let a woman go, but I'm not about to go campaigning on Facebook either. The fact that I'm even blogging about it has me a little perplexed.

I guess, in a way, I think it's interesting how we've gone from the Yiddish edition of the Forward's "Gallery of Vanished Husbands" to Facebook page and website please to free someone. I think it's socially and psychologically fascinating, and I'm curious whether it has any pull or works.

I guess, in a way, I'm helping the "cause" by posting something here. I can't imagine being stuck in this kind of situation, and I thank haShem every day that I didn't have kids with my ex and that our divorce (by and large) was incredibly smooth (I asked for basically nothing, I left with basically nothing). I've never understood the type of divorce where you ask and torture and try to emotionally and financially ruin someone. When I got divorced, I just wanted to be done with it -- all the money in the world couldn't have made me feel any better about the decision, even when I left essentially broke.

It's all quite baffling. Sad. And baffling.

If you want to help support the cause of agunot, check out the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot. 

I'm a Statistic, and That's Okay.

I give you, the world's most awesome info graphic. Ever. It breaks down Facebook & Twitter by demographic, knowledge and use of the service, and more. This is the kind of stuff that makes me giggly and social media gooey. Enjoy!

The Facebook Anthem?

If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest ... in the world. It reminds me of Nebraska, where Husker Stadium became the third largest city in the state on game days (at a meager 80,000 something). If Facebook were a country, would it have an anthem? Would it have a flag? Would its president be Mark Zuckerberg? It's a weird thing to think about. But it also creates some kind of fusion, of people the world over. It's like we really do exist under a single set of dictates. The Facebook Constitution (aka the terms of service and privacy agreement).

Anyhow, here's a fun updated Map of Online Communities by the folks at xkcd.com on the current landscape of the interwebs. Click on it to make it huge. I highly recommend this, because you'll see all the funny and quirky details.

The Social Network

I got started in social media through a simple website called LiveJournal.com. From there, I joined a bajillion other websites, made friends, connections, and have networked myself in ways unfathomable to most people I know. I counsel converts-in-process and the curious. I dream of a book deal. And I ask myself, why is Mark Zuckerberg a bajillionaire when he got started the same way as me (and a ton of other people): by journaling on LiveJournal.

A girl can dream, right?

Anyhow, I was curious, after seeing "The Social Network" tonight, to dig up the date that I joined Facebook, a social network that I could let go without any care in the world (while holding firmly on to Blogging and Twitter). After some careful digging around a private forum I've been a member of since who knows when, I discovered the date: December 3, 2004. The moment I joined, of course, I tried to loop all of my newspaper buddies in on the social network. They did, and so did millions of other people. I was part of the trend early on. It's something I wear as a little badge of pride, probably misplaced. Social media, as you know, is the song in my step.

The movie? It was outstanding. I'm convinced that Sean Parker (founder of Napster and un-asked-for mentor to Mark Zuckerberg) is a, pardon me, complete you know what, and Zuckerberg is an awkward genius with a misplaced sense of who he was meant to be. But mad props to him: No matter who you are, you breathe, and Facebook knows it. For better or for worse, it's the here and now. It's no longer the future. Just like Twitter. It's the now and the someday. That is, of course, until the next best thing comes along.

So here's how I heralded the coming of TheFacebook.com, on December 3, 2004:

All right folks. This is a new, obsessive thing. It could be more addictive than friendster AND myspace. It's all for university students -- to register you have to have a unl.edu or unlnotes.unl.edu or bigred or something e-mail address. It's networking, but among university students. You can pretty much see everyone at UNL, create communites, do all sorts of crazy ****.

So if you go to UNL, have an account, create a ******* facebook man. Seriously. John and I are recruiting people for the "daily nebraskan" community.

WE NEED BODIES!

http://www.thefacebook.com

I suppose you could say I had a feeling about where Facebook was going ...

Anyway, I hope you all had an outstanding chag and are prepared to get back to the grind. I know I'm not. Too much homework and not enough time. There's a lot of Hebrew translation, movie watching, paper writing, and sleeping to be done.

Haveil Havalim No. 281!

Well, I'm not hosting it (I remember how much work it took, and I'm still hesitant about hosting again, but I should, because it's the right thing to do!), but Ki Yachol Nuchal! is hosting it, and it's the Summer's End Edition. Slap me silly and call me stoked, but I'm ready for fall. So go give it a read, and then come back here and give me some love.

Also, just for kicks and giggles I thought I'd share with you a funny verb that y'all should know.

לפסבק

Yes, that's "l'fesbek," which is "to facebook." Thus, I would say, Ani m'fesbeket (אני מפסבקת), which is just hilarious to me. I love the evolution of English words into Hebrew!

Happy trails and a good week!

The Winding Journey to Social Media.

It began when my parents purchased a computer in 1997. We got AOL, and for the first time in my life, I had instant messenger and access to the outside world. The big, bad, e-world of strangers. I remember meeting some kid online (okay, I was a kid too, at the ripe age of 13/14) who lived in Arkansas. We actually "dated" online, which was weird, because we'd never talked on the phone or in real life. Needless to say, it didn't last long, but it was my first true taste of what the World Wide Web had to offer.

I created a MySpace page, started a LiveJournal, and really got the flavor of chat rooms. I joined groups on LiveJournal, made random friends on MySpace, and started to become a pro in the world of early social media platforms. I was hooked, I was addicted. My dad had to put a time limit on my e-time, in fact, which kicked me off the web at 1 a.m. I was that hooked.

When I got to college in 2002, I didn't have a computer of my own. I relied on my roommate's computer to keep my LiveJournal very active, and I instant messaged there as well. Then, in 2003, I purchased my first desktop computer and my first cellphone (I was a little behind the game in the cellular department). My LiveJournaling took off and I met my first "real" online boyfriend (who, yes, I would later meet in real life and move in with while living in Chicago, actually), and I started to meet people In Real Life that I'd met online on MySpace (scary).

I joined Facebook the moment it was available at my university, got GMail when it first came out, and became a quick devotee of all things Google. In April 2006, I decided to venture away from my LiveJournal and start a real blog -- a topical blog, this blog. I stopped going to MySpace so much, and embraced Facebook in a serious way. I joined Yelp in 2007, and I took a real dive into the world of meeting strangers In Real Life that I only knew on the web. In January 2008 I joined Twitter, and I went to my first Yelp function where I met a boatload of strangers who were awesome and not scary at all. From that point on, I realized that Social Media and the e-world was more than meets the eye: it was a networking extravaganza of awesomeness and friendship.

In 2008 my blog really took off with followers, and since then I've managed to loop in tons of new readers, new Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and a degree of Social Media presence that earned me a #5 on the most influential Jewish Twitterers by JTA. I spoke at SXSW Interactive 2010 as an expert on Jewish social media, and I've been tapped to moderate a panel discussion next month in NYC at the Jewish Shmooze event. My blog is my top priority (after Tuvia, of course), and I feel guilty if I don't Tweet dozens of times every day. I try to keep up on Facebook, but it's hard sometimes.

You can find me on Yelp, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, Daily Photo Booth, Flickr, YouTube, 12Seconds.tv, last.fm, Foursquare, and ... the list just goes on and on (I also have a lot of inactive, defunct spots like Brightkite, that are in my name).

Just Google "kvetchingeditor" and tell me what you find. I've branded myself, and that's a success story in Social Media. People know me by my handle, and because it floats across the web, I'm lucky that it's consistent.

Sometimes, I sit back and wonder whether it's all been worth it -- the amount of time wasted playing games on Facebook while waiting for my Twitter to update on Hootsuite or an email to come in from some connection about some function, and my overall conclusion is Oh oh oh YES!


All I have to think about is the people I've met and how they've enriched my lives. I can't count the number of Twitter and Blogging connections I've met In Real Life who have become my closest and dearest friends. Is it worth spreading my entire life all over the web and sharing my experiences with the most distant of strangers? Without a doubt.

That's what Social Media is about: selling yourself/your brand to complete strangers in the hopes of building lasting connections and creating important, life-changing conversations over a variety of web platforms that highlight user-created content.

Of course, it isn't for everyone. I got started on this all 13 years ago (man I'm old), and sometimes it feels too big even for me. But I wouldn't change my experiences for anything in the world. This is the future, folks. Embrace social media. It's the present and the future. Don't believe me? Watch this awesome video below (hat tip to @bryfy).

Friends Forever: The Long Road of Memory

Driving down a Nebraska road, circa July 2006.

Six years ago, in the summer of 2004, in an effort to occupy ourselves and keep each other on friendly terms while out of school, I took a roadtrip into the country of Nebraska (okay, so it's mostly country) with my good friends of the time Andrew, John, and Anthony. There was a mix CD involved (think: Bob Dylan), and it was that summer that I roamed around freely with my friends, exploring the city and exploring the state. Those summers, when I was in college for my undergraduate degree, were some of the best years of my life. I'm not that far from them (2002-2006), but I look back on them nostalgically because I had a sort of careless fancy that makes me smile when something reminds me of those days. Pictures of country roads, memories of figure-8 races out at the county fair, and watching some country boys watch some very uncomfortable indie flicks that made them cringe and leave. There was cheap beer, coffee, long drives, silent moments, and complete happiness.

My first two years of college were surrounded by men, as I found myself most comfortable around my male counterparts. Andrew, Anthony, John, Caleb, Jordan, Ryan, Greg. These were the guys who, when I think of college (the early years), I think of. To be honest, I'm only still speaking semi-regularly to two of them (one made it to my wedding and another who couldn't, but I still love him). I check in on the others on Facebook, several of them married and others enjoying bachelorhood for all its worth.

I took a drive today from our place in the Poconos to Hawley, PA, a mere 20 minute or so schlep, in order to track down a little coffee shop called Cocoon Coffee House. I didn't think there'd be an actual "coffee shop" out in the middle of nowhere like this, but amid antique stores and general stores, here I am, at a coffee shop with some darn good iced coffee (purchased, kindly, by a local who felt bad that I'd waited so long for my coffee). The drive was on long, quiet winding roads overgrown with trees and old houses with quirky mailboxes. I often wonder what kind of people live in villages or towns like this, where you have to drive a half-hour for groceries and hours further for a Target (I'm hooked, what can I say).

Those, of course, are the moments I think back to the people who lived in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska, where figure-8 races were the highlight of the year, cheap beer was like champagne, and mentalities are slow, easy, and mostly kind.

Sometimes, as Morgan Freeman quipped in "Shawshank Redemption," I just miss my friends. The people who helped me find myself and who took me on the adventure of a lifetime, even if it was just eating Thanksgiving dinner at the table of a family in small-ville, Nebraska, or walking around an Omaha art gallery, or watching movies over cheap beer. Making mixed drinks in a dorm room, watching "A Clockwork Orange" with a complete stranger who would become a best friend, and watching late-night MTV just for the music videos. Those were moments that many people in my Orthodox Jewish shoes never got to experience, let alone understand. I'm privileged to have come from where I came from.

I just wish those people, those boys who turned into men before my eyes, were still active participants in my life and I in their's. When we're back together -- at least with the two I speak two off and on somewhat regularly -- it's like old times. Like I'm still me and they're still them. And in reality, I think we are. I might have changed my clothes and my religion and my hair style (as in, well, it's under a hat now), but I'm still me. I still enjoy cheap beer and Woody Allen and the simple things in life. My friends, my men, I think they're also the same.

Because people don't really change, we just grow up, grow apart, and remember, nostalgically, those long drives down Nebraska highways.

Note: I could devote about 30 blog posts or more to my female friends. It took me a little while to make good female friends in college, and I think the firsts were probably Beth and Melanie, followed by Heather and Ananda. I miss them all oodles, and I get to see Heather fairly regularly. She's my fashionista, design diva BFF. College was a funny time for me and friends. I lost a lot of my high school friends as I made more college-side friends. Luckily, two of my closest friends from high school -- Christina and Maryl -- are still good friends to this day. In the photo below you'll see Heather on the left side of the photo (with her hubby), then me and my man, followed by Andrew (mentioned above), and Maryl (with her hubby). Seriously though -- all of my close female friends have basically been 10 feet taller than me. What gives!? So, see, friends can be continuity. Maryl was my oldest friend there; we got our friendship rolling circa 1998. Twelve long years later, I was so happy she could come to my wedding!

If it looks like my dress looks weird, it's because the bussel broke and Tuvia is holding it up in the back :)

A Meeting of the Minds!

Here's a teaser of our wedding photos, which now are up on Facebook. Unfortunately, you can only see them if you're one of my Facebook friends (sigh), so if you have problems viewing them, just let me know, and I'll hook you up!

Yes, folks, here you see the Twitter fame known as @mrs_Gruven @sebelsky @ravtex @susqhb @gruven_reuven @hsabomilner (and her KoD) @kvetchingeditor @schnit @elianahsharon @chicagoleah @alizahausman @ha_safran and @kosheracademic. I guarantee this photo will make it to the wall of my living room in 8 by 10 fashion :)

The Who's Who of the Jew Crew!