Jewish Federations Turn to Social Media to Reach Young People

Faced with the challenge of raising its profile among people in their 20s and 30s, the group Jewish Federations of North America is turning to social media.

Last month the New York organization started a campaign — What’s Your #ish? — that asks people to share their thoughts on what it means to be Jewish via Twitter, Facebook, or the campaign’s Web site.

So far the campaign has elicited more than 1,600 posts, including:

• “My #ish is a combination of past generations and future generations; my way of being and relating to the world.”
• “Having a grandma that still bakes rugula and special prune hamentashen even at 88.”
• “Watching PB Jewish Americans with one of my grandmothers and mom on mothers day was wonderfully dorky#ish in the best way but most importantly family#ish.”

“The quality of submissions, which always is an unknown when you run social-networking initiatives, has been amazing,” says Adam Smolyar, a senior vice president at the organization. “There are some really funny ones, but there are so many personal ones, where you really get to see that someone is sharing an intimate thought about what Jewish identity means to them.”

Everyone who posts a message gets to vote on how a $50,000 #ish fund should be distributed among five causes that Jewish federations support, such as poverty, eldercare, and solidarity with Israel. The voting feature includes a sliding scale that allows people to split their votes among multiple causes.

The process was designed to give participants a taste of what federated giving is all about, says Mr. Smolyar.

“You get to experience allocating among needs — which is basically what federations do every day — to try to make these tough decisions,” he says. “You get to experience it without being preached to.”