Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Jewish Educational Media UPDATE: in the past two weeks.. for Tuesday, 31 March 2015

Jewish Educational Media 

UPDATE: in the past two weeks.. for Tuesday, 31 March 2015


Dear Friend,
It’s Yud Alef Nissan, the Rebbe’s 113th birthday, and we wanted to give you a brief update on our recent progress.
Thank G-d, the success of the JEMleap campaign has already been multiplied many times over in the new excitement it brought to the team. With G-d’s help, we expect you’ll be able to see the results for a long time to come – in sharing the Rebbe, his inspiration, and his teachings with the world through video, audio and photography.
We know it’s Erev Pesach, but figured you could use a few minutes of respite for some good news.
In the meantime, here are some of the things we’ve been working on in the past two weeks since the campaign.
Social Media
During the past two weeks:
Ø 78,103 videos were viewed on our YouTube pages. (BTW, here’s a newly discovered and restored video of the Farbrengen at the Rebbe’s 74th birthday (=1976) that we just put out last week:
To see all of our new uploads as they come out, subscribe to our channel: www.youtube.com/JewishMedia. Or in any of these languages:
Ø Our Facebook reach was 167,643, and 34,270 video views were reported on our Facebook page. Catch future posts by liking our page: www.facebook.com/jewishmedia.
Ø 24 videos were sent to our Hebrew and English WhatsApp groups – that’s 34,800 videos broadcast, times many that amount who enjoyed the content through forwarding! (To get the English or Hebrew videos every day, send the word “English” or “Hebrew” via WhatsApp to 718-774-6000.)
Ø NEW TODAY: Launched our new French WhatsApp channel. Over 500 people signed up in the first ten hours! Sign up by sending a message to: +336-63-52-39-96
Ø NEW TODAY: French Facebook page. www.facebook.com/JEMFrancais. As of this sending, we have 97 likes.
Platform Development
We’re continuing to work toward easier searchability and access, and we’ve made progress in a number of areas:
Ø Began final development of the “100 Best Videos of the Rebbe” website.
Ø Completed the interface design and began development on a major overhaul of the hugely-popular app – Living Torah app 2.0.
Ø Imported hundreds of thousands of English subtitles into the content management system, and synced them with projects for use in video exports. Commenced work on Hebrew and French subtitles (to be completed over coming four weeks, G-d willing, followed by other languages).
Ø Made tremendous headway implementing new features into our content management system: Exporting videos with embedded subtitles, automated ingest of new interviews, ability to tag individuals in videos, consolidating and importing existing content logs and database files into the video tool. These upgrades (and many more) enable us to handle a greater capacity and produce better content – more quickly!
Ø Began re-mastering past films for eventual use in the JEMbox delivery platform.
Research and Production
The production team has:
Ø Researched, produced and translated 13 new segments for Living Torah disc 139, including a number of newly-acquired films. Among them: Lag B’omer 5720-1960 with the Rebbe’s visit to the park and a silent film of Motzei Shavuos 5721 (1961) with the Rebbe saying a Maamar, giving out Benedictine, and Davening in the old courtyard of 770.
Ø Edited the beginning of the “Ketoim” series, Highlights at 770, focusing on Cheshvan, 5748. The production team reviewed the early rough edit of the first scenes, and suggested changes to the format of the video.
Ø Restored and began preparing the full-length Farbrengen of 11 Nissan, 5743 for future release, including replacing problematic audio throughout the Farbrengen.
Archive and Preservation
The archive team has:
Ø Scanned 9,000+ new photos directly from the original negatives – mostly photographed by Levi Yitzchak Freidin during the years 5751 and 5752 (1990). Thus far, 4,628 of those have been organized and cataloged. After all the metadata is applied, they’ll be uploaded to The Living Archive photo site for your access and perusal.Speaking of the photo site, here are some beautiful photos of the Rebbe’s Farbrengen of 37 years ago today; 11 Nissan, 5737.
Ø Worked with our preservation vendor on the restoration of the original video recording of 12 Tammuz, 5741. To our knowledge, this event hasn’t been seen in the 34 years since it took place!
Ø Assisted 18 outside entities with research, collaboration and production of materials for use in their projects.
Interviews
Some highlights of what the My Encounter with the Rebbe team has been up to:
Ø 20 new interviews were recorded in the past two weeks – each of them a treasure!
Ø A testimony collection team headed by Rabbi Mendy Mochkin conducted a whirlwind trip to Manchester, England, where they interviewed seventeen individuals about their experiences with the Rebbe – all in 4.5 days (averaging 12 hours of photography per day)! Each of these interviews was truly incredible.
Ø One example: On a 1970 concert trip to the US, Mr. Michael Tabor, an acclaimed musician, had a late-night yechidus lasting 25 minutes. After telling the Rebbe about his love for music, and how Beethoven’s string quartets and the dveikus niggun inspire and move him deeply, the Rebbe began a fascinating discussion of music, the arts and the benefits and dangers of synthesizing them with Torah. Music and the arts can be very uplifting, the Rebbe explained, but only when they come with Torah and with the knowledge that Torah is the source of it all. One must do more than one understands, and he one must be a role model for others in the professional world. The Rebbe urges him to dismiss negative influences and to focus on the positive, because perception determines everything.
Ø Two interviews were recorded in Israel – including a woman whom the Rebbe taught Alef-Beis in Nice, France, in 1941! – and one in New York.
Ø Four editions of Here’s My Story were prepared for publication. Watch for the stories during the four weeks following Pesach!
Thank you again for your support. We wish you a good Yom Tov and a Kosher and happy Pesach.
Rabbi Elkanah Shmotkin and the JEM Team____________________________
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