In summer ‘08, I took a wrong cyberturn and found myself signing up, unprecedentedly, for a free profile. Woman seeking a Man…Boston…24…enjoys fine dining, long walks on the beach, and bitching about the snow. Before I knew it, I was e-forking over $39.99 for a month of full Jmembership, and then everything went Jfuzzy.

“Covering Jewish life has felt expansive, kaleidoscopic, and unendingly interesting. I don’t need to publish stories that other places can publish. I want to publish stories that really feel like us,” says Alana Newhouse, the 33-year-old editor in chief of Tablet, an online magazine launched by Nextbook in June 2009. Nextbook hired Newhouse to revamp its online literary journal in September 2008. She, in turn, infused Nextbook with additional journalistic elements, which ultimately led to the creation of Tablet’s website.

The largest challenge we face is not the racists — it is the online culture that accepts them and their message. This acceptance allows others, particularly the young, to be drawn to prejudice through their ignorance. It encourages good people to stand idly by, or risk the ire of the community for attempting to limit another’s “free expression”.

What if instead we worked together, as one Jewish community? What if one synagogue specialized in education, one in prayer, and one in social justice? What if people were members of the community as a whole, and not of one particular building? What if we referred members out as often as we tried to hold them in?

I believe that the internet's greatest potential is to enable people to work together. There are examples everywhere of how the internet and tools like social networking are changing the rules. But this is only the beginning, and for us to truly realize the potential of a connected, collaborating world, there are more products to be invented and big problems to be solved.

I suspected that many young Jews have strong online personas that incorporate their Jewish identities, even when they're connected to non-Jews and friends from other communities... I wanted to find out if other young Jews use social networking sites in similar ways.

We pulled up to Putti village, Uganda, on a Wednesday morning in late June. We had barely arrived when children surrounded us, kneeling down to shake our hands. "You are most welcome" was one of the first things we were told, and told again and again. We were taken by their warm hospitality, and began to embrace their behavior. It was only later on in our trip, as deeper philosophical issues arose, that we began to question our adoption of their values and behavior, and what role our own values should play in our interactions with the community.