About The Leeds Jewish Info Project
Community Development Project
This website is part of the community development project that is being run by the Leeds Jewish Representative Council. They are seeking to be proactive in building a brighter and stronger future for this community. The project revolves around a number of different areas including:- Increasing communication and letting everyone know what is on offer.
- Selling Leeds to the wider Jewish community.
- Finding ways of welcoming new members of community.
- Creating new provision in the community.
- Working with LJI to build to build on activities available for 18-35s.
- Building our presence in the wider Leeds community.
- Making future plans and acquiring funding for them.
For more information about the project, contact the Community Development Worker, Neil Clarke, at neil@ljrc.org
Website
The website is a good start in collecting information about ourselves and displaying this to the world. It is in its early stages at the moment and we hope to continue to build on this resource, by increasing its functionality and improving its content.This is what I said about the website in the March edition of JLife magazine:
"As a tutor for a philosophy course at university, there was one issue that all tutors had to deal with. Many of the students seemed allergic to using the library which, whilst sounding Phillistinic, is in many ways understandable. While there were only a handful of books, the course had about a hundred students, so it made sense that they would turn to a resource that is open to all. Equally, the fact that a Google search reveals 77,100 results for “Kant's Transcendental Idealism” means the internet should be a fantastically wealthy resource on that subject. However, more often than not, it would have been quicker for us to correct the Wikipedia article everyone used rather than mark their essays!
John Paulos remarked, “The Internet is the world's largest library. It's just that all the books are on the floor.” Just as people wouldn't spend the time sorting through random books on the floor, motivation is required to sift through all the useless information on the internet to get what you need. This is no less true for the Leeds Jewish community than for transcendental idealism! Many of the organisations of the community have fantastic websites. However, put yourself in the shoes of someone considering whether to move to Leeds. Where can you go for an overview of the community to see everything on offer? For everyone who goes to the effort of contacting the Representative Council with a specific query, another ten people will give up looking.
Solving the above problem is at the heart of the 'Leeds Jewish Information' website that Daniel Sissman and I have created. As a 'one-stop shop' for information, it really gives a feel for the community. We hope that you find this new web site to be informative, attractive and simple to navigate and it should become highly ranked on Google making it easy to find what you're looking for or a good place to advertise your business to the community! Laid out in this way, the vast amount Leeds has to offer is clearly visible and is a great springboard from which we hope to 'sell' the community. Just like Wikipedia it gives you information at a glance, but unlike Wikipedia, it is accurate and doesn't mention transcendental idealism once (except for here of course)!"
- Neil Clarke, Community Development Worker