Reboot was founded eleven years ago as a strange experiment. We wanted to see what would happen if you engaged a creative cast of characters in a no-holds-barred conversation about how identity, community, and meaning are changing in America today.
The project was launched in the spirit of innovation and adventure. While it had no premeditated outcomes, we had a hunch that if an eclectic, intelligent, inventive network was let loose and given the freedom to discuss the personal questions they harbored about their own identities, they would quickly forge new concepts that would encourage a wider audience to do the same.
We arrived at that hunch after spending a year interviewing 800 creative types in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles about their own identities and experiences. These frank and honest conversations uncovered a large, young Jewish audience who expressed an eagerness to explore questions about history, theology, ritual, culture, and philosophy, yet professed slightly less interest in the universe of traditional Jewish organizations then in existence, most of which had been established before the 1940s when issues of survival and fighting anti-Semitism predominated.
Where others had suggested this widespread lack of interest was just an anxiety-inducing symptom of assimilation, we sensed it could be a springboard for reclamation. The United States had changed radically in the postwar period, and while America’s Jews had been transformed along with it—a large segment moving en masse from the city to the suburbs, from tradition to modernity—the organizations had not always kept pace. Reboot was formed to experiment with closing that gap by catalyzing forms of Jewish life that would encourage participants to define identity, community, and meaning self-confidently, on their own terms.
In the course of the last decade, Reboot has spawned over 100 projects, including digital projects like 10Q (doyou10q.com), enabling thousands to reflect on their year, prior to Yom Kippur; Sabbath Manifesto (nationaldayofunplugging.com), promoting the notion of a technology-free Shabbat; the Idelsohn Society (idelsohnsociety.com), exploring postwar history by taking re-releases of lost Jewish vinyl onto the Billboard chart; and Sukkah City (sukkahcity.com), a global architectural design contest building a dozen avant-garde sukkot (the temporary huts built for the festival of Sukkot) in the heart of Union Square, New York City.
For more on this Unscrolled project go to unscrolled.org and @unscrolled.
Every project that Reboot has birthed is a testament to the passion, energy, and collective curiosity of the Reboot network, an always remarkable, occasionally unexpected cast of characters willing to run through walls in order to bring a production line of ideas into life. The network is too sprawling to mention name by name, but we are especially indebted to Reboot’s board: Scott Belsky, Roger Bennett, Greg Clayman, Ben Elowitz, Kate Frucher, Jeremy Goldberg, Julie Hermelin, Courtney Holt, David Katznelson, Samantha Kurtzman-Counter, Rachel Levin, Steven Rubenstein, Jill Soloway, and Anne Wojcicki. We are especially grateful to those who have served as Reboot’s chair over the years: the mighty Erin Potts, the strategic Scott Belsky, and the dynamic, inimitable David Katznelson. Special thanks also to those who have given their time to work as Reboot’s staff over the years, especially Amelia Klein, Shane Hankins, Robin Kramer, Maria Arsenieva, Melissa Buscemi, Lisa Grissom, Dina Mann, and Tanya Schevitz.
Reboot is also proud and honored to have partnered with more than 500 community organizations around the world. Yet none of our projects would have come to life without the encouragement and support of the many foundations, individual donors, friends, colleagues, and partners that have supported Reboot financially over the years. As a 501(c)3 non-profit, we know that investing in an experiment demands real courage, and we are grateful to each and every one of you for believing in us. We are ever indebted to the late Andrea Bronfman, whose vision Reboot made manifest.
We are also grateful to Rabbi Barry Schwartz and the Jewish Publication Society for their support with this project. We used their brilliant Torah, The Jewish Bible: Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures—The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text, as our core text, and encourage all those who intend to follow the portions week to week to do the same. JPS is currently raising money to create a digital version of their translation. Please support them.
The concept that became Unscrolled came from the mind of Damon Lindelof. It was his idea that led to the creation of this book, and we are grateful to the fifty-four writers who agreed to jump into the project with such abandon. Working with you all over the past two years has been a delight, though it has also made me realize that Moses simply had the commandments handed to him for a reason. We are also indebted to Adam Walden who came up with the name for this tome.
It has taken a collective as large as a biblical tribe to bring this book to life. Thanks to my agent, Elyse Cheney, and her team. I am grateful to Kate Lee for introducing me to Suzie Bolotin, who has edited this book. Suzie, I cannot tell you how much I adore being in your company. When I am with you I am overcome by a sadly ephemeral belief that every global problem can be solved and overcome. Thanks also to the creative and patient design duo of Raquel Jaramillo and Jean-Marc Troadec, as well as Selina Meere, Jessica Wiener, Courtney Greenhalgh, Beth Levy, Samantha O’Brien, Barbara Peragine, Jarrod Dyer, the entire sales and marketing team, and everyone at Workman.
On the Reboot front, I am grateful to Harrison Owen, whose Open Space methodology is at the core of the Reboot project. I am also indebted to the magical Amichai Lau-Lavie for his textual and educational brilliance. A gent who possesses the most eclectic mix of attributes I have ever encountered in one human being, he patiently worked with many of the writers as they thought through their contributions. (For more on Amichai and his work go to www.amichai.me.)
Rachel Levin has long been the most insightful, patient, and determined professional partner I could have had. She has been blessed with every skill set that I lack, including style, grace, wisdom, and an ability to bring the best out of everyone she encounters.
I am also utterly indebted to Dana Ferine, who has long demonstrated an unparalleled ability to work with boundless passion on some of the most arcane projects in America.
Finally, love to my family—the Bennetts and the Krolls. As someone who was expelled from Hebrew school when my father was president, I know nothing will ever erase the shame I brought to the family name. I hope this project goes some way to repairing the damage. Massive love to the kids I have “begat:” Samson, Ber, Zion, and Oz; and most of all, to my wife, Vanessa. You are all the proof I need to know that behind every biblical patriarch, there is a biblical matriarch acting as the puppet master.
twitter: @rogbennett