Keynote Address by Eli N. Evans, President Emeritus, Charles H. Revson Foundation.
Conference on Media and Technology in Jewish Education, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, June 3, 1997.
Shaping the 58th Century With 21st Century Technology

Addressing the Jewish dimension of the telecommunications revolution, let me say a few words about the telecommunications revolution itself.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab, in his recent book, Being Digital, states that "computing is not about computers anymore. It is about living." In Negroponte's words, "the computer represents the merger of home and office, of work and play." With regard to education, he states, "schools will change to become more like museums and playgrounds for children to assemble ideas and socialize with other children all over the world."

It's not easy for even the most informed observers to understand the shifting sands of change. On any given day, you can pick up a newspaper or turn on the news on television, and read or hear a wide variety of different stories about the Internet and the newest technologies. One recent article described understanding the Internet "as trying to pick up a lemon seed from the kitchen table." It is difficult, it said, because the Internet operates under a governance idea some call "consensual anarchy."

We may not always understand new technologies completely, but many more of us are beginning to understand what they can do. Unlike broadcasting and print, which are one-to-many entities with a passive audience, the new media, like the Internet, are many-to-many media, in which everyone with a computer and a modem has the opportunity to become a publisher, a broadcaster, a researcher, a communicator.

It's no secret that telecommunications are changing the world as we know it. You all know the numbers: Fifteen years ago, America was three broadcast networks, PBS, and the local movie theater. Today:

• Not only do nearly all American homes have TVs, 86 percent have VCRs (95 percent with children have them).
  
  
• Cable TV is now available to 92 percent of U.S. homes, and about two-thirds report subscribing. An additional 5 percent of homes receive satellite TV service. More than a third of all homes now receive 40 or more channels, three times as many as five years ago, ten times as many as ten years ago.
  
  
• The number of Americans using computers is growing exponentially: by the year 2000, there are expected to be more than 80 million computers in the U.S. While the primary usage continues to be for business, a growing number of households -- especially those with children -- have computers.
  
  
• As of this month, the Nielsen company reports that 50 million North Americans are using the Internet and as many are using E-mail. There are more than 700,000 registered World Wide Web sites, and with the new ease of creating "home pages," that number is growing daily, if not hourly.

The two biggest challenges, at this point, are ensuring equitable access and developing creative content.

We've all heard a great deal of talk over the past few years about the need to ensure that there is equitable access to the Internet, so that no one will be left behind in this revolution. In this country, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have repeatedly called for the building of a "digital information highway," and for making the hardware and software necessary to utilize it, available in every American school by the year 2000. The Israel Ministry of Education recently made a similar pledge to the schoolchildren of Israel.

As critical as access is, even more critical is creativity, the potential for using these new technologies creatively in the service of education -- and, in this case, Jewish education.

A leading scientist from Bell Atlantic briefed foundations some time ago and pointed out that the crisis in the computer revolution was a crisis in creativity. On the walls at headquarters, he said, is a sign reading: "It's the content, stupid."

For the Jewish community today, there are a huge number of opportunities across many technologies: on cable television in a world of 500 channels and widespread satellite connections; in film and video cassette libraries and rentals; through educational software, CD-ROMs, the Internet, and the Web. With all of them, I believe, our challenge is the same: developing creative content.

The Talmud says that "messages that come from the heart, go to the heart." We have an opportunity to facilitate such messages, to bring together Jews from all over the world.

So, in that spirit, I would like to try to relate new technology to the themes that have animated discussions across the Jewish world in the past few years -- of Jewish continuity and education, and of Jewish survival . . . and what we can do to build an interactive community of the Jewish people all over the world.

Where does the Jewish community stand with regard to the telecommunications revolution in 1997?

Let me start with the media we know best -- television and film. In terms of television, we witnessed a glimpse of the power of electronic intimacy during the tragedy of the fall of 1995, at the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin. C-Span transmitted the words and pictures of the gathering of world leaders and their orations into 140 countries, along with the touching family tribute from Noa, his granddaughter, whose simple and moving farewell stirred young people profoundly in Israel and will forever be in our hearts. Television provided a window for worldwide participation and commitment to peace, for which Rabin gave his life, turning the ceremony into a universal resolve. It transformed living rooms around the globe into a vast worldwide amphitheater of shared mourning. Jewish and non-Jewish families -- from Jerusalem to New York, Paris and London, from Tel Aviv to Buenos Aires and Moscow -- gathered about the electronic hearth during those sad days of aftershock and shared loss.

This outpouring of feelings from world leaders, from non-Jews as well as Jews, was unprecedented in world history. And for us, as American Jews, modern telecommunications provided us with something more: it gave us the opportunity and the means to feel connected to Jews in Israel and all over the world; it united us in sadness and in resolve; it reawakened us to our sense of peoplehood. Jews the world over reaffirmed their connection to Judaism and to the land of their ancestors, brought together by television over the loss of a Jewish son who had changed the course of history.

Yet, at the same time, the limits of our current telecommunications systems meant that much was missed in Israel and elsewhere. Had we been able to continue to share Jewish experience on a worldwide level in November of 1995 -- a Jewish C-Span if you will -- Israelis as well as Jews from around the world could have been present in a packed Carnegie Hall in New York City for Itzhak Perlman's violin tribute to Rabin; could have joined the 250,000 people at the second Peace Now rally a week later at the site of the assassination, when "Shalom Haver" became the symbolic refrain of the young generation; or could have shared the emotions in Madison Square Garden 30 days later for the vast outpouring of American Jewish support and unity for Israel's historic path to peace. In the weeks after, Jews around the world could have listened to extended conversations and melodies expressing the profound sorrow of the young people of Israel, who held candlelight vigils in the streets and squares in Israel, who sang and spoke of continuing Rabin's quest for peace. But this kind of electronic intimacy need not be limited to a national tragedy or a single event. If there were a permanent satellite link creating an international Jewish television network with a Jewish C-Span function, it could be an everyday experience. Such a channel could be anchored in Israel and in America, but committed to interaction with Jewish communities around the world. We could develop special programs for one another in Israel, in the United States, in Europe, Latin America and Australia -- wherever there are ideas and talent.

The telecommunications industry in America will soon launch not only the 500-channel cable system, but also the infinite channels of the digital revolution, and it seems to me that we should commit ourselves now to developing one or more channels devoted to Jewish programming that can link American Jews with Jews in Israel and around the world.

A number of elements are already in place:

• The Jewish Television Network in Los Angeles will soon be available in seven major American cities, and, with virtually all of Israel now wired for cable, the television industry is growing dramatically in Israel. And, as the telephone, the television set and the computer continue to move toward merging into one multifaceted technology, think of the potential of such a commitment to reach into the Jewish home in every country in the world.
  
  Think about daily news and features bringing detailed reporting about the people and the history of Israel into homes in America and other countries. Think about our families experiencing not just controversies and violent episodes, but the daily life of Israelis. Think about the possibilities for the 50th anniversary of the state of Israel.
  
  And think about Israelis learning about Jewish communities in America and throughout the Diaspora. That this is needed is already clear to the Israeli government: For the past few years, the Ministry of Education has been putting considerable funding into programs with the Hartman Institute and others, to educate Israeli teachers about Jews and Judaism in the Diaspora, particularly Americans, precisely because most Israelis have so little idea about how American Jews live -- what we believe, what our religious practices are, how we feel about Israel and how we live as Jews.
  
  
• The Open University of Israel is already beaming programs in Russian to thousands of students of all ages in a hundred cities and towns across 11 time zones of Russia. Now, they are in the first stages of creating an Open University of the Jewish People that will prepare courses on Jewish history and culture in many languages for Jewish families around the world.
  
  
• As you know, many children's programs have already been produced: Rechov Sumsum (the Israeli Sesame Street) and Shalom Sesame (its North American adaptation); Alef-Bet Blastoff, the JTN series that was nominated for a 1996 Cable ACE award; The Animated Haggadah; and Shari Lewis's Chanukah and Passover on PBS. These could be expanded to teach Hebrew, holidays and customs, and Bible stories to children in every country. Children around the world could also experience the forthcoming Israeli-Palestinian Sesame Street, which will be completed this summer and broadcast in the late fall or winter.
  
  
• Similarly, there are many possibilities for cultural and arts programs for such an American-Israeli Jewish channel. In addition to the many individual TV programs and documentary and independent films that already exist, there are scores of ideas for new programming. Just to mention two:
  
  Writers and journalists, both in Israel and from other countries, could be interviewed at length about their work, and even be brought together in discussion with one another.
  
  The 92nd Street Y in New York, through its Bronfman Center, could provide the material for programs based on its series of concerts, poetry readings, discussions, debates, and lectures.
  
  
• With news programming, the situation is similar: Young and emerging political leaders in Israel and the U.S. and Jewish intellectuals from all countries could participate in frequent electronic international round tables to interact with each other.
  
  When Edgar Bronfman reports to the World Jewish Congress on the status of his talks with the Swiss banks, a worldwide audience could participate. In-depth looks at the Eizenstat report and interviews with Stuart Eizenstat himself could broaden the conversation and the understanding.
  
  The Jewish people all over the world could come to know Jewish personalities from every country -- Israeli Cabinet officials, university presidents, playwrights, poets, scholars, religious thinkers, scientists, and corporate and financial leaders. There are so many opportunities for exciting discussions, interviews, and profiles and television biographies.

Film is a critical component, of course -- both for any kind of broadcast effort and for a variety of educational initiatives as well. Most of you have heard me talk before of the Jewish Heritage Video Collection -- the collection of 200 feature films, documentaries, independent films, television shows, and PBS series; and 12 courses on such subjects as coming of age, values and acculturation, romance, Yiddish culture, Israel, and the Holocaust. Collections and accompanying teaching materials have already been placed by local donors in synagogues, JCCs, universities, and other institutions in 37 sites across the country. At least another 50 sites will be placed by the end of the year.

Other major film initiatives include:

• The Brandeis National Center for Jewish Film, headed by Sharon Rivo, has made pioneering efforts to restore and make available to new generations the great treasures of Jewish and Yiddish films; and
  
  
• a new joint venture of the Righteous Persons Foundation and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture has created a competitive film fund for the production of new Jewish documentaries and films.

While talking about the new technologies of the Internet, the Web, and CD ROM separately is necessary at the outset, we need to be constantly aware that all of these technologies are quickly converging with television and telephones. Already, Web-TV makes it possible to turn on our televisions and access the Internet. Soon, it will work the other way, too, and full motion video will be available on the computer. And Bill Gates promises that access to the new technologies will soon become faster, easier, and continuous and that programming, technologies and distribution will converge. To facilitate this, he has bought into a cable company and has launched an $8 billion project with Boeing to send up an additional 800 satellites worldwide, each one circling the earth at one thousand miles in space, to facilitate easy interactivity all over the globe, even in underdeveloped countries.

It's hard to believe, but according to an excellent new book by Irving Green entitled Judaism on the Web, there are already more than five thousand different Jewish sites on the World Wide Web, covering everything from discussions of the Bible portion of the week, to courses in Basic Judaism, to an exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are dozens of Jewish bulletin boards and "chat rooms" for conversations and study and research. There is access to music, museums, libraries, The Jerusalem Post and other publications, holiday information, singles meeting places, and kosher restaurants. This spontaneous outburst of activity can and should be dramatically enlarged and energized with coordination, funding, and support.

What is newest, and perhaps most exciting, for the future of the Jewish community is that the computer-based technologies of the Internet and the Web are already being used to build communities of common interest and friendship that transcnd geography and age and time. It is interesting to note that the first Jewish groups to have a major presence in cyberspace were not the ones we might have expected, but the Lubavitch movement, which early saw the new technology's potential for reaching the world to deliver its messages. In fact, it is only recently that almost every major Jewish organization and institution has begun to catch on and catch up. Now, students and faculty at Hebrew University and the Weizmann Institute are beginning to be in regular touch with their colleagues at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Hebrew Union College -- as well as Rockefeller University, the Sorbonne, Oxford University, and the University of South Africa. Worldwide ORT in England is building a program of Hebrew and Bar and Bat Mitzvah instruction and is beginning to make it available online to young people in places where no teachers are available -- like parts of the former Soviet Union and South America, as well as small towns in Montana, Alaska, and Mississippi.

Jewish Community Online is the first truly comprehensive Jewish site on the Net, with AOL giving it a built-in audience and a capacity to add features all the time. It has a newsstand (with publications including the Jewish Forward, The Jerusalem Post, Moment, Sh'ma, and the local Jewish papers from Philadelphia, San Francisco, Portland, and other cities); a bookstore; local, national, and international bulletin boards; a searchable database of recent articles from around the world; chat rooms for different ages, special discussions with authors, rabbis, and teachers; a basic Introduction to Judaism course, with explanations of all the holidays, a guide to "what happens in synagogue," and, most recently, a complete transliteration of the Friday night service; a forum called "Ask the Rabbi," with answers provided by Orthodox, Traditional, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and Post-Denominational rabbis; and links to hundreds of Jewish sites on the Web.

Speaking of AOL's Jewish Community Online, which was originally created in San Francisco and then picked up by AOL, as an experiment, I recently went into a chat room and asked "Who here has ever attended Brandeis camp at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute in California?" Within minutes, I had responses from 15 people, and we broke off from the larger group into a private chat area, creating an instant "virtual community" for a wonderful hour of reminiscing about our experiences.

Our goal must be to conceive new, innovative programs that link young Israelis to young people in America, families in Paris to families in Tel Aviv and Los Angeles, students in London to students in Moscow, Jerusalem, and New York, and congregations in Latin America to congregations in North America, the Middle East, and Asia.

The growth in home computer sales offers a rare opportunity to launch a Jewish educational and cultural renaissance in the Jewish home. It turns out the Jewish people have been in training for the computer revolution for 2,500 years. It is uncanny, but the Talmud is organized in virtually the same manner as an interactive CD-ROM, grouping commentaries around a single word or phrase or concept in the text. CD-ROMs enable us to go another step -- to add video art and additional text. Israel is already a center of software creativity and a leading creative force in the production of CD-ROMs. And, there, as here, it is the province of the young: just visit the leading CD-ROM companies, where the average age is 25 years old.

A great deal of creative activity is already under way. For example:

• The entire 32-volume Encyclopedia Judaica has just been released on CD-ROM.
  
  
• CD-JEMM in Israel is currently producing an animated Haggadah and an animated Hanukkah CD-ROM.
  
  
• In the next few years, you will be able to experience the Holocaust Museum in Washington and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem without traveling farther than the computer in your family room. Similarly, WNET/Channel 13 in New York is about to release a disc that will enable you to tour the Tenement Museum in NYC; and in San Francisco, a new Jewish museum is in the planning stages that has a worldwide Internet strategy as an integral part of its mission.
  
  
• As the storage capacity of CD-ROMs increases with digital compression, it is already possible to put an enormous amount of data on a single disc. WNET/Channel 13 is also working to produce a CD-ROM in the new digital video format -- known as DVD -- from Abba Eban's Heritage: Civilization and the Jews series that will let users experience and interact with every period of Jewish history. In addition to seeing the nine hours of the TV series itself in high definition video, users will be able to view more than 5,000 art objects from the Louvre, the British Museum, the Vatican Collection, the Israel Museum, Luxor and other leading museums in the world. The DVD technology will allow a user to move with a click from the video to art objects, to archeological sites, to biblical texts, to scholarly articles, to biographies, to photographs. Hopefully, since the series has been broadcast in 17 countries, including the former Soviet Union, the disc, too, will be a global project in many languages, from Arabic, French, and Russian to Japanese. Hopefully, too, it will eventually be an Internet site, with a full range of discussion groups for all faiths.
  
  
• Steven Speilberg's ambitious Voices of the Shoah project is now collecting 50,000 survivor testimonies and simultaneously organizing them on discs, with background research and educational material, for all ages.

"Teach thy children," the Talmud instructs us, and many opportunities for Jewish education already exist. In addition to those I've already mentioned, videoconferencing is emerging as an interesting means for providing education to far-flung audiences. While not yet widely available to individual users, this technology will eventually be part of the range of options provided by the Internet. Already, the Cleveland College of Jewish Studies is using videoconferencing technology to train teachers in Milwaukee in advanced methods of Jewish education. And recently the American Hillel organization linked up Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz to student groups all across America and in Australia, and the young people were able to learn Talmud from him and ask him questions directly. Steinsaltz also enters an Intel facility in Jerusalem once a month to teach a class in Los Angeles. He hopes to broaden it to other cities.

Indeed, thanks to the Internet, thousands of people are today studying Talmud with teachers in every country and across national boundaries. For instance, the Jewish Theological Seminary is now experimenting with a Talmud course online. Similarly, Rabbi Judy Abrams has established Maqom, a school "located in Houston, Texas and cyberspace" for "the spiritual study of Jewish texts." In addition to a weekly discussion of the Torah portion (through the Jewish Community Network), Maqom also offers study programs in Talmud and Rabbinic literature, a new Jewish-Christian discussion group, and a service to locate a "cyber-hevruta" or study partner.

I recently asked a number people for their ideas and let me give you some examples of activities and plans that are already underway:

• AT&T is experimenting with a new technology that will allow Pinchas Zuckerman in Minneapolis to conduct Master classes with his students in New York and Israel -- they can see him and he can see them.
  
  
• Thanks to Shamash, Jerusalem 1, and other servers and navigators, Internet users can already use their computers to explore the card catalogues of libraries not only in the United States but also in Israel, by downloading Hebrew-reading programs. Soon, they hope, users will be able to do research directly from libraries all over the world, as more and more documents, books, and articles are made available online.
  
  
• Yossi Abramowitz is the founder of the online Jewish Family and Life Magazine which he reports is generating 15,000 "hits" or visits a month. He hopes to create 18 of what he calls "Web-zines," magazine-like Websites on a wide variety of Jewish themes, from Shabbat observance to holidays and parenting.
  
  
• Lambda, an organization in Israel, one of whose partners is the former director of Israel Educational Television, is developing CD ROMs of different books of the Bible, which will enable users to explore a wide range of textual interpretations -- from the writings of the Rabbis to videotaped conversations with modern scholars.
  
  
• The "Virtual Jerusalem" site provides live pictures of the Western Wall in Jerusalem 24 hours a day and a way to send messages to its crevices from your home computer. It includes a walking tour of Jerusalem and received 9 million "hits" or visits from 1 million addresses last December, obviously not all of them Jewish. Over time, this kind of site provides interesting possibilities for interfaith connections.
  
  
• The Bill Moyers television series, Genesis : A Living Conversation, had the largest accompanying Internet strategy of any program in public broadcasting history. Thousands of people downloaded the weekly teaching material or had it e-mailed directly to them, and tens of thousands posted messages on PBS bulletin boards or on bulletin boards on other sites -- Larry Yudelson's Jewish Community Network ran an active discussion of each week's show, drawing more participants than any other JCN discussion; a Washington, D.C., group ran an interfaith "chat session" on AOL's Jewish Community Online site each week right after the program. Moyers himself was a guest on an online chat on AOL, sponsored by USA Weekend -- more than 300 people signed in to a lively Q and A session that lasted for more than 90 minutes on a Sunday night. This is just one example of how public broadcasting and the Internet can be linked together, using the visibility of public broadcasting to attract visitors to the Net in order to continue the conversation.

What's coming next? What needs to be done? What can we -- as educators, funders, and communal leaders -- contribute?

Clearly, there are endless numbers of ideas. Now what is needed is the planning and production funding to transform Jewish education and communication in the next century with a wide range of educational software for the home and school. We have the tip of the iceberg; now we must construct the iceberg itself.

Let me begin by stating the obvious: I believe it is critical for all of us to commit ourselves to bringing the telecommunications revolution to bear in a major way on Jewish education and culture.

I submit that it is a key to Jewish renewal because it is a way into the home and into the heads and hearts of young people, of children, and of families. It can renew our schools, empower our teachers, and allow our best institutions and most inspiring teachers into our homes and the lives of our children and grandchildren. The technological revolution does not replace the gifted teacher -- but it does represent an extraordinary resource for the teacher. It offers new ways to interact with a broader world, opening doors to exciting new visual, textual, and intellectual discoveries and engaging students with Jewish history.

It is our generation's challenge for the next century. It can create community, tell our story; it is infinite midrash, our electronic Talmud. What is happening is as profound as when our ancestors made the transition from the scroll to the book. We Jews became known as the people of the book and of "the word"; in the next century the telecommunications revolution will allow us to recover this proud past.

How do we go about doing this? Linking up Israel with Diaspora communities, and finding new and creative ways to impart Jewish teaching, are profoundly important tasks. Much of the framework for these activities already exists, but it is in its earliest stages -- still very diffuse and of varying degrees of quality. That framework can and should be strengthened and sustained by funding and imagination, and there are at least two critical new initiatives that have been proposed that I believe deserve serious attention by this group and others.

The first initiative, which originated with Josh Fidler of the Morton J. and Louise D. Macks Family Foundation, is a new, central clearinghouse for Jewish media which would ensure that those interested can easily find out what is available and how to get it.

A second, larger idea that has been discussed by many people over the past few years is the creation of an International Fund for Jewish Media and Technology -- a major new institution in Jewish life that would be independent and free standing, with international participation from a constellation of our most outstanding leaders and personalities in many fields. The facilitating body should receive substantial funding from Jewish communities and from Jewish philanthropists around the world, but it should be independent of all existing agencies. It must be mission driven with a high degree of credibility, free of a commercial motive, capable of imaginative decision-making, with quality as its hallmark. It should not build a large bureaucracy or production facilities but function like an international public/private foundation, providing grant and venture philanthropy funds to many different initiatives in Israel, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Australia and in other Jewish communities all over the world. Supporting the best and most talented people with the most creative ideas should be its sole mission. The Jewish communities in all countries, whose children and families will benefit, can eventually be asked to contribute, but start-up funds will have to come from major donors. It should come into being with at least $5-10 million a year for five years.

Meetings of concerned and involved leaders in Jewish education are critical, because they can help to produce an action plan across a wide range of activities that would strengthen the common culture and shared experience of Jews wherever they live.

In addition, consultations should be held with leading communications industry leaders in Israel and the U.S., and with outstanding creative talent in film, television and computer technology to develop a partnership that can bring these new channels of Jewish unity into being.

Leading thinkers believe the world is in the midst of a revolution as profound as the industrial revolution. It is the information age and for the Jewish people, it is already filled with possibility. As Israel moves into a new period of self-confidence and economic maturity, it is time to forge a new kind of partnership with Jewish communities around the world based on mutual respect and shared experiences.

Let me end by speaking to you for a moment as a father:

I have a 12-year-old who takes the computer for granted just as adults now accept the fax machine, CD records, and 50 channels on a television set as a natural part of the home and office, although each one is less than a decade old. For him, computer technology is like taking a drink of water. In educational terms, it is not separate from his school and books but all one system, and whether he is using the computer as a dictionary, an encyclopedia, or for spell-checking a paper, it is part of his world of learning. He "talks" to his friends and teachers on e-mail, even when they are on vacation in California or with parents in Israel, and does not think it remarkable. Negroponte says that if you want to know the future, watch the 10- to 12-year-olds. Soon, all computer and television programming will be pouring from a single screen, and that is our challenge -- there must be a Jewish presence available to our children and it must be first rate, creative, attractive, and engaging.

The Jewish leaders of today and the dreamers of tomorrow must seek to create a Jewish world that restores the feeling of family, of common destiny and common experience to Jews in every country around the world. The telecommunications revolution gives us the opportunity to become one people again, for our young people to come to know one another, for our Jewish communities to become neighbors, for our scientists and writers and poets to interact with one another, for our best teachers and rabbis to extend their knowledge and share their wisdom, for our experiences to become joint and communal ones, even across time and space. The field aches for Medicis, for venture philanthropists, who can provide the level of sustenance to build this new world.

The light in the candles of Israeli youth, which the whole world witnessed in the aftermath of the Rabin assassination, is the light of hope. We must not let it go out but must use it to light the way to a new world of Jewish unity and interaction. The opportunities to use technology are all about us, waiting to be harnessed in the next century to the great task of Jewish memory, education and renewal.