Even when it’s used as a term for unwanted e-mail, “spam” definitely is not kosher.
An e-mail from Marcy Weiss or Paul Allen is.
Almost on a weekly basis, Weiss and Allen send e-mails to thousands of Jews in the Bay Area — taking advantage of ’90s technology in an attempt to round up twenty- and thirty-something Jewish adults for social gatherings.
Weiss’ organization is called the Young Professional’s Kesher, which she likes to call YPK. “Kesher” means connection in Hebrew. “We’re more about connecting with community than having events,” Weiss said.
Allen’s operation is called Jew Crew, which he prefers to write like this: jEwCrEw. “I just thought it looked better like that on the computer,” he explained.
YPK and Jew Crew sponsor activities such as Shabbat dinners, book signings, hikes, cafe nights and bar hopping for young Jewish adults. They get the word out almost exclusively through massive e-mailings.
Gathering e-mail addresses in just about any legal way possible, Allen and Weiss have expanded their lists in rapid fashion.
The Jew Crew e-mail list has logged about 3,800 addresses since it formed 16 months ago. It got to be so overwhelming, Allen had to purchase a specialized e-mail software program.
Weiss’ list is at a more manageable 400 addresses, but she’s been compiling it for only three months.
“I try to be very inventive in getting people’s addresses,” said Weiss, a statement that is certainly no shock to the many people who have received one of her sarcastic, whimsical letters from out of the blue.
“Hey all you Slacker Jews,” one letter began.
“Sometimes people will write me back and ask me where I got their e-mail address,” she added. “‘Hey, I don’t mind you’ve got it, but where did you get it?'”
Weiss, who is 26, said she gets them mainly through AOL profile searches and by perusing Jewish online dating services, looking for East Bay residents. Word of mouth, er, word of keyboard also plays a big part.
She started her organization, which is sponsored by Conservative Temple Beth Sholom in San Leandro, in part because she felt other young-adult groups staged events that had too much of a “meat-market feel” or were too expensive or stodgy.
“I also lived for a while on the East Coast, and when I moved back [to the Bay Area], I found I wasn’t meeting the kind of people I wanted to meet, with the kinds of events I wanted to go to,” the Hayward resident said.
The group sponsors or co-sponsors weekly Shabbat dinner either at Beth Sholom or a member’s house. There are also holiday parties, but more secular events, as well, like an outing to an Oakland A’s game this past summer. Her events have attracted up to 30 participants.
“For people who don’t feel like they have a place right now, we’ll make that place for them,” Weiss said, adding that Jews of any bent are welcome.
Jew Crew has pretty much the same philosophy, except most of its end-users live on the west side of the bay, including many San Franciscans.
The group started innocently enough, when Allen “invited a dozen Jewish friends to go out to a bar.” The 30-year-old San Francisco resident was seeking a more Jewish feel to a night out.
“In L.A., if you go out on a Friday or Saturday night, odds are that you’re going to be in the midst of some Jews,” Allen said. “That’s not true here because we’re spread so thin.”
From those humble beginnings, Allen put together an e-mail list of about 15 addresses. It soon ballooned to more than 1,000, a number that has since nearly quadrupled.
Allen said 100 to 200 people show up for many events, such as bar nights at Atlas Cafe, Circadia and the Thirsty Bear. One of the most recent events, a book signing with “Generation J” author Lisa Schiffman in September, drew 60 to 70 people, he said.
The success of Jew Crew has spawned several Jew Crew subgroups: a book club, a ski club and a Sunday morning bagel nosh.
“It got to be a bit much for me,” Allen said of trying to stage one event per week, which is what Jew Crew adherents were clamoring for. “Eight months ago, I cut back to planning one [event] a month. We had a request for volunteers to run other events, and 80 people expressed interest.”
Most Jew Crew participants are single. “I go out of my way to try to get couples, but it’s an uphill battle at this point,” Allen said. Weiss, too, notes that about 80 percent of YPK participants are single.
Then again, Allen has no problem with singles getting together. After all, he met Rebecca Boxer at a Jew Crew bar night last year. Their wedding is scheduled for April — a happily-ever-after ending for a tale that began at a bar called The Bitter End.
“It makes for a good story,” Boxer said. “But at first I thought Jew Crew was a joke. I thought my friends [back East] were making up e-mails just because I was single and out here all alone…I finally said, ‘OK, fine, I’ll go.'”
In addition to inspiring his love life, Jew Crew also gave Allen the idea of posting a Web site, which he calls Jewniverse. It’s been on the Internet since late September and also covers New York, Boston and Los Angeles.
“With Jew Crew, I was getting an increasing number of requests to distribute job opportunities or apartment openings or chavurah schedules and listings,” Allen said. “People sent me the information and wanted me to distribute it.”
Unable to do it single-handedly, Allen met with four engineers and started the Web site, which also includes movie and restaurant reviews and event listings.
“In San Francisco, there are all these great young and mid-life Jewish groups, but there’s not one place you can go to find everything that’s going on a given weekend,” Allen said. “That’s what Jewniverse is aiming to be. I want it to become the de facto location where Jews go to find out what’s going on.”