Blogging, Jewish Blogging

Musings #60
July 18, 2004

Blogging, Jewish Blogging

My husband and I are Jewish bloggers. It does sound a bit obscene for those who haven’t heard the term before. Since I only found out what a blog was a few weeks ago, I presume that some of you aren’t familiar with the word. They are internet sites on which one posts whatever one wants on one’s own “page.” We each have our own blogs, and we write about Jewish and Israeli subjects. When I finish this musing, it, too, will appear on my blog.

Our blogs aren’t among the big hits. As far as we can tell, nobody seems to check them but us. In the world of blogs, there are some major celebrities. We’re not among them. We’re still waiting in the wings, unknown and undiscovered. It may be our fault.

From my peeks at the popular ones, I realize that they are like the diaries mine and earlier generations locked, far from prying eyes. I can’t imagine confessing everything to a keyboard and tossing it into cyberspace so that anyone can read it, and even if the writer is careful to put an untraceable address, it’s child’s play for hackers to find out the blogger’s true identity.

I’m from a different generation. I can’t go around in public places shouting intimate details of my life into a cellphone, for all to hear. Socializing has changed so much in recent years. It used to be that when at a wedding, everyone sat around the table talking to each other, or trying to talk over the noise of the band. Now they’re still talking, but they’re talking to others on their cellphones.

I read that most bloggers last about six months, and by then stop writing. Could it be that they gave up waiting to be discovered, waiting for hits and comments? Don’t they realize that a true diary is supposed to be concealed until one dies. Only then should the secrets be discovered.

Back to our blogs. We both applied to get onto the “Jewish Bloggers Webring.” When we were put on the waiting list, we were informed that it would take a few days, and we were in the late thirties, early forties on the list. At one point, we made it into the twenties, but after waiting over a month and a half, I think we’re well into the seventies or eighties now. It seems pretty clear that we’re too staid and boring to catch the eye of the list-owner.

The ones that have been put ahead of us tempt and tease the reader with tales of woe, of “…squirmy details…complaints, …whinges and general bitterness… Rants, raves, and butterfly bellyaches… …rumors and speculations… …Burning thoughts… …dating stories… ….living passionately….” (All the words and phrases are direct quotes from the blog blurbs on queue to be accepted to the Jewish Ring.)

I guess we’re just a couple of bores, dull lives and all that.

Batya Medad, Shiloh
Shilohmuse@yahoo.com
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/
http://www.shilo.org.il/