Website Updates Galore!

Other than the Jewnification Project, two of the most important online resources for UCSC Jewish students are JewCSC.com and SantaCruzHillel.org, which have both been updated recently.

The Hillel website got a major face-lift and now features a decidedly more user-friendly interface and two calendars, one for "Hillel events" and one for "community events." Otherwise, there is still the requisite list of student groups, a page of birthright info, and a page to donate money to Hillel. More updates are in the works, according to Shalom Bochner's message on the Hillel homepage.

In addition to the updates to JewCSC.com reported previously, now there is a free interactive classifieds section which is sort of like a Jewish Craigslist.com (in the rough) where you can hook up housing, rides, and buy and sell stuff, all in the Santa Cruz Jewish community. There is also now a section called "In my humble opinion," which is supposed to be "a forum for locals to comment on local and international events." If the commentary is as colorful as that on the articles on Chabad.org, it will be well worth reading (e.g., see the commentary on this article, which had been linked to in a JewCSC.com e-mail... sometimes the comments are more interesting than the article itself).

My heart is full to see our campus Jewish orgs seriously using the internet as a tool to improve our community. Your efforts should be fruitful in the new year.