Daniel Sieradski

Daniel Jonathan Sieradski (born June 19, 1979) is an American writer and activist. He was the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of Jewschool, a popular left-wing Jewish weblog, as well as the weblogs Radical Torah and Orthodox Anarchist. He is also the creator of the defunct synagogue listings and reviews website ShulShopper. In the Fall of 2011, Sieradski organized a Yom Kippur Kol Nidre service at Occupy Wall Street that drew around 1,000 participants, and erected the first structure in Zuccotti Park the police allowed to remain standing: A sukkah.

Career

In 2001, Sieradski, founded Jewschool, which was called "influential" by Cnet. Sieradski has also worked as a web designer and digital strategist with several Jewish organizations, including the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Repair the World.

Activism

Googlebomb

In 2004, Sieradski organized a so-called googlebomb, an attempt at manipulating Google's search rankings. Responding to outrage over the placement of an antisemitic website atop the results on Google's search for the term "Jew" and a call for Google to censor its search results led by Steven Weinstock, Sieradski organized a campaign which replaced the site Jew Watch with Wikipedia's entry on Jews.

Corner Prophets

Sieradski organized hip-hop concerts with Israeli and Palestinian rappers, with a project called Corner Prophets, with the stated intention of promoting peace and coexistence through the arts. He has also been a DJ on the jointly-operated Israeli-Palestinian FM radio station All For Peace which broadcasts from Ramallah.

In August 2006, Sieradski and two fellow yeshiva students organized a benefit concert in Jerusalem attended by 80 people, that raised more than NIS4,500 or around $1,000, for Israeli and Lebanese victims of that summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah. In January 2009, Sieradski led a similar effort to express empathy for victims on both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Responding to the renewed violence in Gaza, he organized a demonstration in New York City, attended by fewer than 50 people, condemning both Israel's and Hamas's attacks on civilians.

Occupy Judaism

On October 7, 2011, citing the Hebrew prophet Isaiah's admonition to fast by "feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, breaking the bonds of oppression," Sieradski organized a Kol Nidre Yom Kippur prayer service at Occupy Wall Street, the mass demonstration for economic justice in Lower Manhattan that began in September 2011. Some reports placed attendance at upwards of 1,000. The Forward's editor Jane Eisner called it a positive "turning point" in American Judaism, while Commentary (magazine) called it "a deeply troubling trend that all who care about the Jewish future would do well to take seriously." Sieradski has also been credited with erecting the first structure in Zuccotti Park allowed to remain standing by police: a sukkah.

Nothing to Hide

In June 2013, reacting to Americans' complacency over the mass surveillance disclosures revealed by Edward Snowden, Sieradski set up a Twitter account, @_nothingtohide, that retweeted users who expressed a lack of concern or outright support for U.S. government surveillance. The account became the focus of a column by Ross Douthat in The New York Times.

Jews for Bernie

Sieradski was National Organizer of Jews for Bernie, a grassroots political action committee that mobilized Jewish community support for the Presidential campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. The group drew controversy, including condemnation from former Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman, after defending Sanders' Jewish Outreach Director Simone Zimmerman's use of an expletive while discussing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Facebook post. Due to a misunderstanding of federal election regulations, Jews for Bernie PAC was forced to change its name to Progressive Jews PAC.

Nazi Detector

In June 2016, Sieradski modified a Google Chrome extension called The Coincidence Detector that was used by white supremacists to brand Jews with echoes, replacing its database of Jewish names with a list of alleged white supremacists and its parentheses with swastikas. It was released it in the Chrome Web Store as The Nazi Detector. The extension was criticized for its database's inclusion of some conservatives who dispute their labeling as "Nazis," in particular Jewish anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller.

Acclaim

Sieradski has been described and as "a major figure of the Jewish Internet world and a cultural trailblazer with a diverse fan base" by The Forward. B'nai B'rith Magazine called him a "fresh faced iconoclast ... redefining American Judaism," and Tikkun said he was "fast becoming one of the most recognized Jewish literary voices on the Internet." The Jewish Standard described Sieradski as "a leader in a Jewish movement that is trying to a create a new image for Judaism to project to its youth," he was called "an innovator in Jewish new media" by Editor & Publisher. In 2008, The Jewish Week counted Sieradski among a group of 36 Jewish New Yorkers under the age of 36 "who are combining mitzvot, leadership and passion in making the world a better place." In 2010, he was numbered among The Forward 50, an annual listing of the 50 most influential American Jews. Haaretz has called him a "professional thorn in the side of the American Jewish establishment."