H eadlines
Jewish Community Relations
Council Director Jason Holtzman
Courtesy of Jason Holtzman
Weissman believes the
“butts in seats” model of
education — having students
show up to a classroom — is no
longer realistic in a world where
many children have smart-
phones. Holtzman recalled a
Jewish education that included
reading book after book, which
is no longer a way to “meet
people where they are at.”
“The way we have to be
thinking about this in the Jewish
world, is we need a revolution,
and the revolution is everyone
lives on digital — That’s reality,”
Weissman said.

With so much knowledge
at students’ fingertips, “there
is no reason that any Jewish
person should be ignorant at
this point,” he added.

JCRC will host a virtual
training event for Jewish
educators on March 9 at noon
entitled, “Making Jewish Ideas
Come Alive in the Classroom.”
A training event for commu-
nity members is forthcoming. l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
OpenDor Media Executive Vice President Noam Weissman delivers the
keynote presentation at the Jewish Agency conference in Los Angeles.

Courtesy of OpenDor Media
education from OpenDor.

“We’re able to turn to them
for advice or guidance on
Israel and Israel advocacy and
education whenever we need,
which is really great for us,”
Holtzman said.

The Unpacked division of
OpenDor Media includes a
YouTube channel with more
than 100,000 subscribers and 9
million video views, according
to their website. The Unpacked
podcast has more than 25,000
views. Video topics include
“Jews and the Civil Rights
Movement,” “Does the United
States fund Israel? U.S. Foreign
Aid Explained” and “Why Does
Amnesty International Think
Israel is an Apartheid State?”
“Their videos are really easy
to access; they’re very easy to
start a conversation,” Holtzman
said. “The more resources that
we can provide that are digital,
especially to engage a younger
audience, the better.”
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM The goal of Unpacked, and
OpenDor more broadly, is
for younger audiences to gain
fundamental understandings
of the Jewish topics of the day
— especially Zionism — on
an accessible platform. Sixty
percent of viewers are younger
than 34 years old.

“We looked at these
different YouTube channels
like Origin of Everything and
Crash Course and School of
Life,” OpenDor Executive Vice
President Noam Weissman
said. “And we said, ‘Hey, let’s
do that for Israel and Judaism.’”
OpenDor was founded in
2009 by Raphael Shore, a rabbi
and film producer, as a home
for his filmmaking project. As
the company evolved, so did
its mission. It became less of
an organization committed to
advocacy work and more of an
education tool changing the
approach to Jewish education
in the name of Israel advocacy.

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