There is a contest being sponsored by WebAds and Nefesh B'Nefesh. The contest is to choose a blogger who will be sent by NBN to Israel for the upcoming jbloggers conference. the blogger will be attached to a family making aliya on the flight preceding the conference. he or she will write about the family's experience making aliya and will participate in the conference.

Send your fellow blogger on a free round-trip visit to Israel!

Now’s your chance to select a Jewish blogger who will be flying on a Nefesh B’Nefesh charter Aliyah flight on Monday, September 7, 2009 and attend the Second International Jewish Bloggers Convention.

Nominate your fellow blogger with the "Send a Friend" form on the JBloggers.org website and with a post on your blog, and be sure to read the terms and conditions on the site to make sure your entry qualifies.

If you want to try to get on the flight, get a fellow blogger to nominate you.

http://jbloggers.org/send-a-friend

The terms are simple:

1. To nominate a fellow blogger, you must be registered to attend the convention
   (in person or online).
2. The nominated blogger can be located in Israel or the U.S.
3. You must post on your blog who you nominated and why
   (and obviously send us the information too).
4. The blogger you nominate does not need to be registered to attend the convention.
5. The nominated blogger must have a Jewish blog
   (i.e. about Jews, Judaism, Israel, etc.).
6. The blogger who flies in will be linked up with an Oleh/Olah/Family, and must write a series of posts about that experience.
7. If you want to win, you must find a fellow blogger to nominate you.
8. You can nominate more than one blogger (but don’t go overboard).
9. All nominations must be in by Thursday, September 3, 2009.
10. The NBN flight to Israel is on Monday, Sept. 7, 2009.

Additional terms and conditions

1. The ticket is round-trip JFK-Israel.
2. No ground accommodations or any other expenses are included.
3. The winner will be selected by Nefesh B’Nefesh.

The choice is very difficult. There are a lot of good bloggers out there who are all worthy of being selected. I am torn as far how to choose who to nominate. I can nominate an old-time blogger who has done a lot to promote blogging, and himself is a blogger with a large audience. I can nominate any one of a few newer bloggers that have smaller audiences but are "up and coming", will do well with this project. I can nominate big bloggers. I can nominate bloggers I'd like to meet. I can nominate bloggers who I think would do well with a trip to Israel (think Birthright). Or any of a number of other methods to select my nominee.

Also, I would hope that the experience of blogging about a family in the process of making aliyah will help encourage said blogger himself (or herself) to consider making aliyah and perhaps engender such feelings of a desire to move to Eretz Yisrael.

So, who to choose? Who to choose?

I don't know who can come if they are selected, and who would reject it anyway because they cannot come. I have seen some great nominees on other blogs, and I really had a hard time choosing. It would be much easier if we could nominate a list of a few bloggers.

Being that I can only choose one, I would apologize in advance to the many bloggers who are deserving of the nomination, but I am going to go with Lion of Zion. He meets just about all of the criteria I considered - LOZ is a blogger who has been around for a while, he is interesting, he has a nice sized audience, he writes about Israel and loves Israel, he is entertaining and thoughtful and will do well with such a project if he is chosen.

So I hereby nominate Lion of Zion to come to Israel on the NBN flight and participate in the conference after blogging about the aliyah experience. I hope if selected he will be able to take advantage of this opportunity.

Being that I can choose a few bloggers (they only qualify that by saying not to go "overboard"), my 2 backup nominees will be Soccer Dad and "Journey to Aliyah".

There has been no Jewish blogger who has done more to help the "jblogosphere" grow than Soccer Dad. Journey to Aliyah is a new blog, but it is written by someone with other blogs and I know that this person will really benefit from such an experience, especially because he has already put himself on a track for aliyah, and we will benefit from his perspective of such an experience.

Good luck to all the contestants, and may the winner do a great job with the responsibility he will be taking on.

Rabbi Ari Enkin writes about an interesting holiday I never heard of before - Yom HaMeyuchas.

A Soldiers Mother wishes her soldier son Happy Birthday!

Shaul saw the cops ticketing a kid for biking with no helmet!

Safra-Knit has a nice Only in Israel story...

WestBankMama wants to understand the meaning of "natural growth".

A Time of the Signs shows a sign that seems to need nothing more than its simple message to convey the urgency it requires.

Rationalist Judaism on Chazal and Science

Joey Guttman on Millionaire Game Show - Jewish Clips and Video has the clips of the show.

Holy exposures describes what can only be a most unusual pious person in RBS 2009.

Mazel tov to Azriel Chayim.

Reb Akiva talks about Yom Yerushalayim, rhetoric and faith.

In Taeneck they don't collect the garbage?

The Way starts with a funny joke then discusses ethnic/racist humor. he should have just posted the joke.

And here is a very interesting video interview with IDF Chief Rabbi in honor of Yom Yerushalayim:

הרבצר from elimand on Vimeo.

Chana analyzes the season finale of 24 and compares it to Judaism. Very interesting analysis.

Interesting discussion going on regarding the recent Kol Brisk Parsha sheet over in the comments at The Way.

Jameel comments on Obama's plan to divide Jerusalem.

RHM talks about a letter to the Yated about fathers not being allowed to attend Bais Yaakov daughters graduations.

Josh Waxman continues the discussion Rabbi Ari Enkin began about Sefirat Ha'Omer, missing a day, and the Rabbi saying the Omer in shul.

A couple of interesting posts you might have missed:

The Way to No-Thing posted about making the case for Israel - from the viewpoint of an atheist Jew.

i Life World posted more about UFOs and aliens - from a Jewish and Torah perspective.

Haveil Havalim #217 is up at Shiloh Musings.

JoeSettler wants to know where religious Jews can live, considering a recent flare-up in Ramat Aviv in which long time local residents are worried about the intentions of a local Chabad group that seems to be tryign to "take over" the neighborhood.

Here are a couple of interesting links for you...

1. Rock of Galilee has been posting again after a long hiatus. he raises an interesting debate about whether it would be better to not keep the holiday at all, or to keep it incorrectly. His example is a co-worker who likes to eat matza with cream cheese and meat.

2. Hubscubs writes an interesting drasha from Rav Nachman Kahane about the US bailout money being good money thrown after bad... He connects that to what he see as American Judaism (Chicago community being his specific example) attempting to perpetuate itself. They are already planning the next Birkat HaChama in 28 years from now - do they not plan to be in Eretz Yisrael by then? Mashiach? You know - the things we daven for 3 times a day?

3. Josh Waxman at the Parsha Blog has an interesting debate going on regarding Modern Orthodox Jews saying Birkat HaChama and whether it might be a bracha l'vatala for them....

4. Jameel has an exceptional archaeological find from the days of Joshua....

On Thursday they were talking on the radio about an incident in which a monkey had escaped from the Safari in Ramat Gan and was running around the streets of Ramat Gan-Tel Aviv (the monkey was subsequently captured in a tree and returned to the Safari).

I heard them interviewing someone from the Safari - I think it was the director. The conversation was fairly humorous as they discussed how the monkey escaped and if it is dangerous and residents shold beware - the radio show host let out a sigh of relief when she was told that the monkey is not dangerous - she said something to the effect of "so we don't have a King Kong running loose in Tel Aviv?".

The director being interviewed said something very interesting. He said that the monkey is definitely scared and regretting his decision to jump the fence. The monkeys are not familiar with the environment outside the walls of the safari, and he is definitely feeling pressure as he does not know where to go, where to get food, and sees nothing familiar. The monkeys, he said, do not like change.

It seems we are not so unlike... we humans also do not like change. Most of us (myself definitely included) tend to stick with the familiar and rarely go out and take risks in unfamiliar territories.

Lawman's Thoughts on Life's post about his personal situation and the options he is considering is a perfect example of this.

Inter Aliya thought up a new chumra for pesach - no cleaning because of chukas hagoyim, since our cleaning is more like spring cleaning.

then he found out that the origin of spring cleaning is Pesach cleaning!

So which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Interesting link:

Rah discusses how the History Channel ended up demonizing King David

Israel is the victim of a modern day blood libel...

Treppenwitz realized that Eldan had already negotiated away the Golan Heights on behalf of Israel. In this great post, he describes his phone call to Eldan attempting to find out what we received in return....

DoubleTapper is back from his reserve duty in Gaza. He passes on a little military secret.....and has got some great pictures....check out his various posts..

Hillel, on another reason to keep kosher...

Jack is still rounding up all the war posts he can find... he is up to Edition 9.

Also, Jameel and Crew are still liveblogging the war..

Hillel, in a brand new blog called "I Life World", writes an interesting post about recycling old computers, and the dangers involved....

A verified story from Rav Chaim Kanievsky seems to say we might very well be....

The Frum Punk has a funny post defining categories of j-bloggers and what you need to write about if you decide to become one.

Too bad I did not get a link, but this is really cool.... even though they combined my position with that of the Eidah, and they were two different opinions...

Wow! I got the honor of a mention in this article! Even though I was not zoche for a link, just the mention is an honor!

Hattip: DoubleTapper