We are celebrating Exploring Judaism’s second birthday! Happy birthday to us!

Birthdays are a great opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come and how much more we want to do.

Exploring Judaism’s Origin Story

While we didn’t have a radioactive spider bite us into existence, we were motivated by an important and radiating question: 

“How can we create an accessible, welcoming, and definitive place for our hashkafa (Jewish worldview) online and do so in a meaningful and strategic way?”

We knew that this was a question that had been asked many times but had never been answered successfully. So, as a result of the work of the Joint Steering Committee and the collaboration of the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism (USCJ) and the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), a team was put together to enact a vision in response to this question.

Once we created a plan, we did something unthinkable, unbelievable, and downright wild… we built and launched Exploring Judaism in 35 days.

Why did we do this? We knew this project was too important to let any more time pass without taking action.  We recruited some wonderful people to be a part of the pilot. Using the resources of the RA’s library of publications, we shared a few dozen articles two weeks before Passover 2022 (5782).

Was Exploring Judaism complete? No way.
Was Exploring Judaism ready for the big time? Probably not.
Did Exploring Judaism have everything needed to be ready for that first Passover? Not even close.

We knew we were building a site that could be a powerful tool in the future. A foundation for so many wonderful projects we could only imagine.

So, we kept publishing, recruiting, and building the plane as we flew. Now, two years later, we are so proud of what we have accomplished.

What have we done?

Let’s start with some numbers.

How many users have we reached?
2022: 22,513
2023: 104,166 (that’s over four times as many people as the previous year)
2024: 45,193 (in just the first three months of this year)

How many views have we had?
2022: 55,181
2023: 184,157 (that’s over three times as many people as the previous year)
2024: 75,466 (in just the first three months of this year)

In total, we’ve published 550 articles by nearly 150 different authors. 

Our YouTube series, Holiday Bites, draws on Masorti voices from across the globe. We created and mailed 10,000 fridge calendars with our holidays. We created some fun and useful swag for the USCJ/RA/CA Convening in 2023 in Baltimore. (Don’t worry, we have more amazing swag coming.) We created printables that people can use to do mitzvot like shaking the lulav and etrog, lighting Hanukkah candles, and counting the omer.

We published our first book, the Not A Haggadah Passover Reader.

We have been building strong partnerships with organizations across the Movement: 

• The Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center and their weekly Torah Sparks
• The Jewish Theological Seminary’s Rabbinical Student Senior Sermons
• The RA’s Committee of Jewish Laws and Standards (CJLS)
• The Movement’s Social Justice Commission
• New publications with Masorti Olami to produce content in more languages, like Spanish, French, and Hebrew.

We know that Exploring Judaism, this wonderful, collaborative experiment, is making the kind of progress we hoped for two years ago.

What comes next?

As proud as we are of our accomplishments, we know there are more topics we want to cover, more materials we want to make, and voices we have not yet shared.

We have big plans and high hopes for the future. Exploring Judaism is about creating a shared place online for Conservative/Masorti Jews, and this means you, dear reader, are a part of this project.

How can we grow together?

One way is to subscribe to our weekly email. You’ll receive a short, curated list of relevant content in your inbox.

Another way to help us grow is to share the articles that you find useful and meaningful with friends, family, and colleagues. If you’re looking for something and we don’t have it, let us know!

Lastly, we are always seeking to share more of your TorahRefers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, also called the Five Books of Moses, Pentateuch or the Hebrew equivalent, Humash. This is also called the Written Torah. The term may also refer to teachings that expound on Jewish tradition.. When you hear someone share a piece of Torah or give a great sermon, encourage them to share it on Exploring Judaism.