Sarah: It's important that more philanthropic dollars be coming into education. Finding and nourishing experiments and education is how we're going to make a bright future together. Bryan: From the recording studios of Reconstructing Judaism, this is Trending Jewish with Rachael Burgess. Rachael: And, Bryan Schwartzman, we're switching up the names. Bryan: We are. Rachael: Welcome back to another episode of Season Two of Trending Jewish, where we are talking to more interesting people that are really impacting the Jewish landscape. Bryan: We're back in Judaism in technology. How is Judaism being impacted and changed by technology, and vice versa. You're going to say something. Rachael: Of course I was going to say something, when am I not saying something? But I just wanted - Bryan: You're interrupting me saying something. Rachael: I can't help it. You're a New Yorker, I feel like that's the only way I can get in there. It's like driving in New York, you have to just kind of like, get your car in there, that's how I do my talking. Bryan: I'm like the most mild mannered un- New Yorker, New Yorker you're going to meet. Rachael: I am still not 100% convinced you're a New Yorker. I shouldn't say that because I also know that your mother is one of our listeners, so I'm sorry Mrs. Schwartzman, I believe you. Bryan: I shouldn't go there but you're a birther. I have a birth certificate to prove, I was born- Rachael: Show me the birth certificate! Bryan: I was born on the island of Manhattan. Rachael: I have to say that with our guest today, from somebody who grew up kind of in nowheresville, out in the middle of desert in Arizona with no real Jewish community nearby, and not having access to Jewish education, our guests have really changed the landscape. People who lived under cacti like me had access to Jewish information. I have to say, I'm a little fangirling right now. I don't know if anybody else is. Bryan: We've got the creators and director of BimBam, formerly Godcast, which puts out all kinds of Jewish digital content. Rachael: Most of the content is actually ... There's animations, and different very short videos, but most of it's actually geared towards adults actually. You watch these videos, you can pretty much watch the entire Torah. Bryan: You can watch the entire Torah, every single Parashah has a video, and there's even some animated stories from the Talmud on there. Rachael: You can learn about the holidays, it's where I learned how to do havdalah actually, 'cause I never did it growing up. This is definitely a great treasure if you're just curious, and looking for new interpretations, or you're just getting started and just want to learn a little bit more about Judaism, and learn about Torah, and don't want to feel ashamed for not knowing anything. This is really just good content that is digestible, and interesting. I love it. Bryan: Now that we've got people excited, we should introduce our guest. Rachael: Yes. Bryan: Do you want to introduce our guest, or should I? Rachael: I'm so excited. I'll introduce one of them, Sarah Lefton, who's the founding director of BimBam, formerly Godcast , and before creating the organization as a response to her own mediocre Jewish education, I feel you Sarah. Sarah produced early online experiments for the New York Times, The Village Voice, Princess Cruises, and several robotic companies. She graduated from NYU's interactive telecommunications program, where her Masters work looked at the use of geographic information systems, or GIS, augmented in virtual reality for film and TV applications. She is very, very talented, and she's got a great background in technology and storytelling, it's great. Bryan: Very nice job, good introduction. Rachael: I try. Bryan: With Sarah is Jordan Gill, who is BimBam's executive director. He has spent more than 20 years in and around the Jewish nonprofit world, including long term affiliations with Camp Towanga, Jewish Free Loan of Los Angeles, and the Hebrew Free Loan of San Francisco, where he was director of development for more than five years. Most recently, Jordan has served as the director of global accounts for an ad tech startup based in Netanya, Israel managing a portfolio of clients with an ad revenue of nearly 20 million dollars. He also has a master of fine arts in writing, so welcome, we're thrilled to have you,Jordan and Sarah. Bryan: You guys have created something that seems essential, that didn't exist, and we're really excited to talk about it. I'll just say, my kids, I have two daughters aged seven and four, and they have gotten into Shaboom. I don't think they get that it's something that's trying to teach them something, they just look at it as a fun cartoon. I told them, I mean I kind of fudged it a little, but I'm like, "I'm going to talk to the people that make the cartoon." They got excited for a little bit, and then they kind of realized I wasn't going to be talking to Gabby and Raphael, and seemed less impressed. But I am very impressed, so welcome. Thank you for taking the opportunity to talk with us about what you guys do, and why you do it. Jordan: Of course. Rachael: Sorry, this is a thing, I like to interrupt Bryan. There are books, there's blogs, there's lectures, there's scholars that talk about the Jewish text, and talk about the holidays. When you started Godcast, which is now BimBam, why did you ... What was missing from all of these resources out there that you felt like BimBam could fill. What was missing out there? Sarah: Actually none of those things existed, except books, 10 years ago. I have to correct the record. There were not all these blogs, all these podcasts, none of that existed. In 2006, when I made the pilot for what was then called Godcast, I made it out of a real personal frustration that there was nothing on the internet that wasn't individual rabbis posting their drashot. There wasn't anything interesting for Jews who wanted to learn online. As somebody who was coming out of digital marketing, and advertising, and media, and entertainment, to me it was like, "This thing should exist. There should be animated parashat ha-shavuah", and I just kind of started doing it. Today, thank God, right, the Jewish internet looks a lot different. But at the time, it was a pretty vast wasteland. Rachael: But even now, after ... Now all of these things are on the scene now. Yet, BimBam is still fulfilling something out there. What's that magic piece that you're putting out into the world that no one else seems to be able to catch? Sarah: I would say that most of us here, and I'm speaking of all the amazing people who have worked here over the last 10 years. People come from a real wide world approach, like entertainment, advertising, marketing. Our board is full of people from Pixar, we've had Apple folks here. We don't think like rabbis, or Jewish educators, although that's part of how we think. We think like video producers, and entertainment people. We don't think that you can really educate without engaging first. Our content really straddles what great YouTube looks like, and what great Jewish education looks like. I don't think that's where other folks in the space are coming from. It's so great to have different perspectives. That's ours. Jordan: I also think that our content is not prescriptive. It presents a wide array of beliefs within Judaism, and a broad understanding, and tries to have a wide tent understanding of the customs and rituals, and how they're practiced across the Jewish spectrum. It's not prescriptive to say, "This is how something ought to be done." It's saying, "Here's the wide array of practices and customs within Judaism", and hoping to connect with people where they are, and not tell them how to behave and act. I'd kind of extend what Sarah said to say, that we try and position our ... We understand that deep learning takes place when people are entertained and engaged. If the spectrum has dry education on this side, and then clickbait sensationalists on this side, we hug a real nice middle so that people are entertained and having fun, and also leave nourished Jewishly, and kind of enriched. Bryan: Thanks for that answer. Before we get too deep into it, I'm just wondering if you can lay out for our listeners, how, on the chance they're not familiar [with] what BimBam is, the scope of what you do? Jordan: Sure. BimBam is ... Our mission is to spark connections to Judaism through digital storytelling for learners of all ages. We have over 350 videos in our library. The videos aim to connect people with Judaism throughout their journey, and throughout different phases of life. Connect with the Jewish values, make people feel more comfortable and knowledgeable so they can engage in a ritual or custom, and be part of community. Also to engage with Jewish text and story in a more comprehensive way. Jordan: We feel like we can do that through showing things, teaching things digitally through video, and also reaching people on their handheld devices, which is where people are engaging with content. Or Googling, "What do I do? How do I engage ..." People get invited to a baby naming or a bris, and don't have experience with that. If they understand what's behind the ritual, and what they're going to be seeing, they can engage in that moment, a real important Jewish moment in a different way that makes them feel more a part of something bigger than themselves, than if they just didn't know what was happening and felt kind of like a wallflower. Bryan: I don't know if you're aware, our organization that we work for, just underwent a name change from "Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Jewish Reconstructionist Communities", to "Reconstructing Judaism". From one organization that underwent a name change to another, can you tell us a little bit about your name change, which I believe happened a year or two ago. What went into that? Sarah: Yeah, we changed the name two years ago, although people seem to be having a lot of trouble with it. In other words, people who've known us forever keep calling us Godcast. But here's the deal, we've always needed to change the name. It was always a funny name idea that I came up with 12 years ago, because I thought we were going to be a visual podcast. "Oh, we're going to be an animated podcast," that's literally how I thought of what I was doing. That's not how it worked out, just 'cause the internet went the way the internet went, and YouTube became what YouTube is. Sarah: The name has been a misnomer for a while, and then you layer onto that this problem we started having, which is that our phone calls would go unreturned when we would reach out to Jewish institutions, because people thought we were Christians from our name. That, somehow, focus on the word God, was flipping people out. That's a really interesting phenomenon that the word God should bother Jews so much, but it does. It's been a liability for us with funders, I mean it's been a problem for a long time. Two years ago we finally had the opportunity to sit down and make a change, and we went for it. Jordan: I'll say, it also hindered our role as a knowledge increaser, and as a medium that has the ability to reach people who might not be inside the community, because one of the things we try to do is decrease discomfort as a barrier of engagement, and the word God can be uncomfortable for a lot of people who want a sense of connection, want a sense of community, have the ability to find that in Judaism, but the God word can be an obstacle of that. The fact that it's not there anymore, and BimBam has a Jewish connotation but isn't explicit in that way, we felt like was a positive. Aside from the fact, again, Sarah said some of our longstanding fans can't not call us Godcast, it's been very positively received in the community. Rachael: What drew you to the name BimBam? I mean I think in my head of the little Shabbat song, where you go like, "Bim Bam, Bim Bim Bam." Sarah: That's it, you got it! Rachael: See, I- Sarah: End of story. It's just a fun phrase, that's it. Jordan: That's the origin story. I think when I think about it in terms of my own understanding, and my own kind of feeling about it, I think that there's a niggun [wordless melody] element to that song, the Bim Bam song, and I think that niggun kind of prepares you for deeper prayer, and I think there's a way in which interacting with Bim Bam's content is a nice preparatory step to being involved in community. We're not a convener of community ourselves, but we really do give people a great baseline and primer, so that when they are in opportunities to connect Jewishly, that they're prepared to do so, and can do so in a more fulfilling, and meaningful, and deeper way. Bryan: Was it Schoolhouse Rock, how does a bill become a law? I seem to remember that. I was really thinking, how does an idea become a video? I look at these videos, I have no idea how much time and work goes into them, but I'm sure it's more than I can imagine. Sarah: Yeah, for a typical ... Do you want to take Shaboom for example? Bryan: Sure. Sarah: 'Cause that's on the high end. We work in a traditional kids media process. We start with curriculum. What are the takeaways that children, and to some extent their parents, want to take from the video? For instance, right now we're working on a Rosh Hashanah episode. Curricularly, what can we teach there? You guys, from where you're sitting, could probably rattle off 20 different things you'd like children age four to seven to know about Rosh Hashanah. We've decided to focus on the concept of, although we're not going to use the phrase, heshbon ha-nefesh. It's a chance in the year to look at, "Who am I? How can I get back to being the best version of myself possible?" Sarah: That's the concept we're going to focus on. We're going to showcase some rituals without going as deeply into them. We're going to talk about why hearing a shofar is part of the holiday. We're going to talk about why apples and honey, and we're going to teach the word "teshuvah". That's curricularly what's going on, are those four things. We decided on that first. Then we work with the writer to create what he calls, a story shape. What might happen with the characters, what kind of problem might happen, given the bible for the show that we established two years ago? The rules of the world, magic, and what works in the world. Sarah: What might happen that would give us an opportunity to teach about those things. Some of those ideas came very easily, for instance, there's going to be this whackadoodle thing around ... The "Plonis" are our family, our hapless family, are going to be trying to make their own honey jars as gifts, and as fundraising for their synagogue, but accidentally the kids are going to give away too much honey and there isn't any left for their own dinner. What's going to happen? But fortunately Papa Ploni is a bee keeper, we learn in this episode, and so there's going to be some silliness around bees and honey, that kids will really enjoy. Once there's a story shape, we then move into a real screenplay. Sarah: We have an incredible team of actors, including Eddie Winters. It's really a killer team. We record them in Los Angeles, they're all L.A. based. We're already working on music, doing a kiddie version of the high holiday nusach [traditional melodic mode] for background music. At the same time that that's going on, we're working on storyboards. We have a dedicated storyboard artist who sketches out every shot. We sync that up with the audio, and then the music gets laid in. Then, real animation begins, and that's a dedicated team of motion artists, of animators, who move our characters around and bring the whole show to life. Sarah: The whole process ... We're going to launch that video on or around August 10th, in time for the holiday a month later. We're already well underway here. As we're talking right now, it's April, and we're already in screenplay, and I'm booking voiceover. It's really a six month process. Each episode of that show costs about $50,000 to produce. Which, in the scheme of the kind of work that most folks in Jewish education do, sounds like an enormous amount of money, but in scheme of children's media production, it's incredibly cheap. Sarah: Everyone we work with in the Disney, Pixar, PBS world, is like, "Wow, you guys are scrappy." We've spent, to date, almost $600,000 producing Shaboom, that you can find online. We're just so proud that it's touched hundreds of thousands of people who are engaging with it for a long time, and who are learning a lot. That's philanthropic dollars really well spent, and we're so proud to have such a high quality Jewish presence online that we're behind. Bryan: Actually, I mentioned my kids, but I know my mother watched one or two of the episodes with them. I don't remember which one, but there was a concept of a Jewish value in there, and she said, "I never knew that." I guess you're not just necessarily reaching kids with that. Sarah: That's right, it's really a dual audience there. I think whenever you're doing work for early childhood, you're not just reaching the four year old, but you're reaching their parent, or their grandparent, that's right. Rachael: One of the things that I find really interesting is, I ended up finding you as an adult, and like you, I didn't have much of a strong Jewish background growing up because I grew up in the middle of the desert in Arizona where there weren't that many Jews. I came across, at the time it was Godcast, and I still go on BimBam, where you had these animated videos, and I didn't feel like when I watched them, yes you have the show that's for kids, but you have these ... Most of your videos are actually geared towards adults. What kind of planning do you have to go in there to be able to create these videos so an adult can look at these things without feeling like they're being treated like a child, or feeling some sort of embarrassment because they didn't know enough? Sarah: That's where I'm coming from. I also grew up in, not the desert, but the hinterlands. I grew up in a very small Jewish community in South Carolina. When I'm talking to adults, I feel like I'm talking to myself, or to my peers that, obviously you're an intelligent adult, and I'm going to teach you what the word "Tanakh" means, but I'm not going to treat you like a child. You're just an adult who, for whatever reason, never learned that phrase, so I'm ... I think that's what we do. We talk to people as intelligent adults, in a really welcoming, easy to understand way. Jordan: Yeah. I think because of that, we have in mind, based on whatever piece of content we're producing, what our target audience is. But, in terms of what audience it's applicable to, it's like such a broad spectrum. We hear about kids, who as part of their Shabbat family tradition, are watching our parasha series every week, kids as young as eight, interacting with it. Is it targeting eight year olds? No. But can they have a meaningful interaction with it? Absolutely. The same goes skewing high. Like you said for your mom, with Shaboom, the target for that is three to seven year olds, but are there a lot of adults who don't know what "ometz lev" or some of the [other] values that we talk about are? Absolutely. It's a learning experience for them as well. Bryan: You mentioned funders a little while ago, and I know you guys are a nonprofit. I want to get into this, because it's certainly a question as to whether donors, philanthropists are willing to fund the most innovative work, are willing to take risks to fund things like yours that really don't have an antecedent, or a model. I guess before I hit that head on, I just wanted to ask the impact question, like how do you think about measuring the ways that your content impacts, changes people's lives? Jordan: Sure, I mean I think one thing that we know, we are a Jewish nonprofit, but we are a media studio more specifically. I think that we think about things as a media studio, and because of that, because of the development cycle for content, how an idea becomes a video, as we talked about before, there's a lot of education that we have to do outwardly to funders to talk about how our process works. It's not just money to video, there's a whole R&D phase, there's a whole ... To make sure that we're just not throwing content up on the wall, but that we're actually responding to the needs of the community, making content that's high quality. We do a lot of education outwardly. Part of that is, when you look at media research, there's 40 years of media research talking about how content and digital content is effective as an educational vehicle. It's not specific to Jewish content, but we like to believe that Jews are people, so it's... Rachael: [laughter] What a concept. Jordan: Media research that's done on the wide scope, has applicability here. There's a lot of research out there that talks about the efficacy and the value of education through digital content. For us, and for the industry really, the metric that matters is watch time. People spend a lot of time talking about views. I got this many views. From platform to platform, the value of a view is different, but really it's a vanity metric in a lot of ways, 'cause if you spend seven seconds on a video, or if you spend seven minutes on a video, oftentimes that's counted as a view. Whereas for us, because education is such an important part, really our mission is around connecting people to Judaism, and making sure that there is a knowledge increase, and a literacy increase. Jordan: How long people spend with us is a much more telling metric of our impact. If somebody spends three minutes, five minutes, watching one of our videos, we can infer that there was literacy increase, that there was information and knowledge transferred during that experience. We map our minutes of watch time, and we know through YouTube, through the analytics there, that we're responsible for over 13 million minutes of watch time, which is over 26 years of Jewish education that we've added. We also know that 2017, that number jumped 74 percent over 2016's number. We've got a nice hockey stick going in terms of how long people are spending with us, and it keeps going up. Rachael: That's a beautiful metric to be able to say to somebody. "Oh, we've contributed 26 years of learning out into the world." Jordan: Absolutely. Bryan: Yeah, I don't think we're there yet on this show. But, just to follow up on that, I'm sure somewhere along the way, you've met a traditionalist who said, or somebody who said, "I worry that you're giving people permission to skip the text, or you're steering them away from the text towards video." Have you been asked that, and if not, how do you respond to that? Jordan: Our content is, in some cases, supplementary. In some cases, it really is the only Jewish educational interface that people use, and it's intended to be both of those things for whomever is interacting with us. There are people for whom traditional modalities of Jewish education are really effective and nourishing, and entertaining, and that's great. We don't want to take that away, but we do want to be supplementary, and provide a really interesting, and entertaining educational experience, then can supplement what they're getting in a traditional setting. Jordan: But there are a lot of people who don't live near a synagogue, who don't feel a comfortable opportunity to have Jewish engagement, and Jewish education in their daily life. For a lot of those people, we are that interface that feels comfortable, meaningful, authentic. I would say that for people who are concerned about us supplanting traditional Jewish educational environments, I think those education environments should be involved in the process of figuring out how to modernize, and how to make sure that they're reactive to what the needs of the contemporary Jewish community are. But we're not actively involved in trying to take their place. Sarah: Also, I would layer on to that, this is just true, right? We surveyed a thousand teachers a few years back, Jewish educators, most of whom work in supplementary settings, you know, congregational schools. Overwhelmingly, they told us that, for instance, like if they were showing one of our parasha videos, they weren't showing it instead of a text, but in fact they don't get to study text at all. They don't study text at all in these people's religious schools. Sarah: Their curriculum is too full with only three hours a week, with teaching holidays, Shabbat, Shoah, history of Israel, whatever. They actually do not do traditional text study at all. For some of these teachers, using the BimBam video was like, "Well, at least we heard a drash on the parasha." Which is really ... That is sad on it's own, and just an interesting food for thought. What's wrong, maybe, in religious school, if text study isn't even a thing. It's just not happening at all. Well that's not our fault, there's a deeper problem to look at there. Jordan: I'll address too, I'll kind of jump in front of your question. Another concern is about, in a similar vein, is about screen time and kids. Research tells us that kids as young as two, are watching an hour and a half of screen time a day at least. We're not saying, "Let's contribute to that," we're saying, "That is a fact. We live in that world. Let's take some of that screen time, and have it be nourishing, Jewish, wholesome content." Sarah: Right. Zero parents who don't let their kids watch TV are like, "Oh, but BimBam." We're not the screen time problem, you know what I'm saying? We're not causing the screen time problem. Jordan: Right. We are providing an opportunity for that screen time to be better. Rachael: You've been actually at this cutting edge when it comes to Jewish education through your experience with your videos. You bring up a really good point as well, about being able to be a supplementary resource for information that doesn't exist out there, or getting a feel for what's being taught in the Hebrew schools. You're at that cutting edge, and you're still there, and you are still successful. I'm curious from yoru views, and from the people you've talked to, and as your community is growing and growing and growing, what does that Jewish world look like to you from the edge? Sarah: I mean, everyone's having these conversations, right? Everyone wants to know if and how digital media should be a part of what we're doing. Everyone wants to know if or how religious schools should change. Everyone wants to know if or how media should be a part of base schools. I mean, I see a lot of really great conversations going on. I think some forward thinking institutions are doing a lot of experimenting. I think it's cool that there's a maker movement happening in schools, and that kids are learning to make podcasts. I see a lot of cool energy going on. I unfortunately see a lot of underfunding. I think there's not enough oxygen for all these projects to survive, and I worry about the community starving slowly, just for not having enough oxygen. Sarah: I think it's important that more philanthropic dollars be coming into education. That's just not where the community's really focused, like as a whole. That's what I see. I see a lot of worries about assimilation, and continuity, and connection to Israel. I see all these things, but I don't see enough focus being put onto [inaudible], and that starts in pre-k to 12, and that funding and nourishing experiments and education, is how we're going to make a bright future together. It's too late, I think. Interventions in people's 20's and 30's are really important, but I think interventions when people are five is where it starts. Bryan: I mean, you guys really filled a niche where people almost didn't realize there was a need before. Do you have any advice to the next crop of social entrepreneurs looking to come up with that next big idea that energizes Jewish life? Sarah: I don't think that it's really on entrepreneurs to come up with ideas, I think it's on social entrepreneurs to listen to communities that they care about, and to let those communities inform whatever it is we design. That's what was going on with me, is that I was whatever, 30, and hanging out with a lot of people like myself, where we would go for answers is the internet, and there weren't great Jewish answers there, so that's what I worked on. I think that it just has to be grass roots. For instance, if what you are passionate about is reinventing b'nei mitzvah, I would just spend a lot of time with 11 and 12 year old kids and their teachers, and listen to them. That's where the entrepreneurship comes from. It comes from that audience that it impacts. I don't think that we can sit here on high with dollars, and our brains, and design solutions for the future without listening to audiences. Jordan: Yeah, I mean I think that looking at the community and using indicators to gage whatever, observance, commitment, affiliation. Using those words, using indicators that are still within a traditional box, to try and guage innovation, and trying to look at new forms of connecting to Judaism, isn't going to produce a robust and thriving new expression. I think that there's a lot of new stuff happening, a lot of experimentation with Jewish feeling, without traditional indicators, or traditional practices that look or feel like familiar with Judaism, but are viewed with a Jewish value, and viewed with a Jewish sensibility. How to measure those things, how to support them, I think, is really the new task of the community, is really figuring out, "Well, it doesn't look traditionally Jewish to me, but there's something Jewish about it, and I want to see what their [inaudible]." I feel like that's a legitimate form of Jewish expression. Bryan: Is there a cool project you can tease for us? Are we looking to have the 26 volumes of the Talmud animated, or what's next? Sarah: [crosstalk] ...find 4 million dollars...[crosstalk] Jordan: That's right. Sarah: Yes, that's right. Bryan: It comes back to that, huh? Jordan: I think one of our nice and unique brand promises, is really a voice that is authoritative without being authoritarian, and that really does bridge that humor without being flip, education without being dry. I think that we're looking at, okay we've done some Jewish values education, we've done culture/ritual/holiday, we've done Tanakh. What are some other aspects of Judaism that we can bring that voice to? We're looking at some things around Jewish history, we're looking at some other opportunities to maybe go a little bit deeper on some topics. People who maybe have a Judaism 101 under their belt, but are looking for a little bit more exploration, a little bit more granular. We're looking at keeping that voice, that constant voice, but new opportunities to use that voice to talk about Judaism. Rachael: Wow, so it's only getting deeper from here. Jordan: Yeah, possibly, for sure. Rachael: Before we let you go, because I'm curious, from all of the content that you have out there, I don't want to ask you what your favorite video is, but maybe it's the same answer. Of all of your content, what piece have you put out there that you've personally learned the most about, like learned the most from? As a viewer, rather than as a producer. Sarah: That's such a great question. I would say my peek experience was probably our program called Studio Godcast we ran in 2012 and 13, where we brought students together, and we tackled 10, 12 of the greatest hits of the Talmud. These were stories that, if you dip into Talmud at all, you've probably heard most of them, but it was an opportunity to go deep into 12 stories over a week, and to animate them. It was bringing visual midrash to Talmud, was really a peak experience for me, and learning about how much Talmud comes from an oral tradition, which was then written down. Now we're bring it into film. It was really exciting, it felt like being at a new Yavneh, it was really exciting. Whenever I get a chance to do more of that type of work, is peak for me. What about you Jordan? Jordan: I think for me, again I'm going to hedge a little bit, and talk less about a video, but more about a program and the experience. Last year we did the third version of a program where we bring a cross section of rabbis together to create content together, and workshop content together to generate scripts. We ran it in Chicago last year, and we used rabbis from across the spectrum. From Orthodox, all the way to Renewal, Humanist. Jordan: The magic and the energy that's created in that room, when everyone's moving towards the same goal, which is forming authentic and meaningful connections to Judaism, but bringing their own stories and their own history to the table, and the generosity, and the good feeling that is created in creating these scripts, they kind of ... Again, its, not prescriptive. Jordan: It's not people saying, "Orthodox is ..." It's people coming together to say, "How can we create the most meaningful content that has the most impact and values?" We're in the process of releasing kind of a slow drip, the pieces that we made from that project that are all about different aspects of tefilah and prayer. I think that those, because of what was behind them, are the most meaningful to me. Rachael: Wow. Bryan: By the way, what are the places where people can find your content? Your website, bimbam.com? Jordan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Bryan: But there are other places too right? Sarah: Yeah, we have two YouTube channels. BimBam ... By the way, it's B-I-M B-A-M. Bryan: Thank you. Sarah: BimBam is our general Judaism channel, and then Shaboom is our kids and family focused channel. You can find us on those channels. Of course via the apps if you're on YouTube kids, you'll find our show on there. Then we partner here and there with brick and mortar Institutions, so for instance, here in San Francisco, the Contemporary Jewish Museum has a kiosk where they show our videos, which is really cool. From time to time we hear about synagogues that do this too. They actually set up a screen on a wall, and have videos on loop, JCCs. Rachael: This is fantastic, thanks for giving us and our listeners a window into what you do. We can't wait to see what's next. Hopefully we'll have a chance to chat again one day. As somebody who was in that target audience who didn't have that kind of education growing up, it's been a great resource, and I hope that all of our listeners definitely check it out. That's BimBam, B-I-M-B-A-M.com. Thank you so much Sarah and Jordan for joining us on Trending Jewish, and you can check out BimBam's content on bimbam.com. You can also find them on YouTube as well. You can check us out on Facebook, we're on facebook.com/trendingjewish. Rachael: You can check us out on our website, and we have other links and different resources you can check out at trendingjewish.fireside.fm. Feel free to send us a message on our website if you have any comments, you have any ideas of people we should talk to, or what you're curious about going on in the Jewish world right now. Please feel free to send us a message, and you can subscribe to our podcast on Google Play, and on iTunes, and Stitcher, and Castro, and wherever you can download podcasts. If you like what you're listening to, and you like the work that Reconstructing Judaism does, you can definitely show your support. Support our work by going to reconstructingjudaism.org/support. Le-hitraot Bryan: Yalla, bye.