In today’s globally oriented world, we are all expected to standardize everything: Eat the same food, enjoy the same shows, share the same ideals, be the same as everybody else. We at leadel.net believe that in the process, we are also pushed into losing our identity.

Traditional definitions of identity disappear, or become irrelevant, are not cool. Yet generations’ of accumulated wisdom and insights are lost in the process, and many people, particularly young people, find themselves rootless. Finding the balance between going global and perserving one’s own identity is becoming harder and harder.

This is especially true of young Jews the world over. The traditional hallmarks of world-Jewish identity are rapidly losing their appeal and significance in the eyes of many. Some go all the way and severe their ties with their community, their heritage and their old identity. But many, many more do not wish to severe all those ties. What they want is to pick and chose from among the old building-blocks that made up the old identity, in order to shape a new modern Jewish identity for themselves: one that will be relevant for young Jewish people in the beginning of the 21st century, one that incorporates the wisdom of the ages into the global world.

This is a difficult, exciting, sometimes difficult process, which is – at the same time – full of promise and new horizons. A vast array of Jewish identities and approcahes emerges as Jewish viewpoints are brought to bear on all the fields and issues that make up life today: business, science, culture, sports, politics, technology and the encironment. After all, if the Cohen brothers reshape movie making and Sergey Brin sorts out the internet as head of google.com, if hebrew is used as a comic substitute for the Kazakh language by Sasha Baron-Cohen, Madonna is a enthusiastic Kabala student – this surely means that a new wave of Jewish identity is on the rise if we choose to address it or not.

We at leadel.net set-out to create a public sphere to help shape and discover these new Jewish identities. We are doing so on what has become the symbol of globalization – the internet. Because it is our belief that, in order for this idenetity-shaping process to be successful, it must be a part of the world around us, open to all views and ideas. It has become commonplace to respect “the other”, to celebrate the differences that make us unique. Still in order to do so, we must first have a clear idea of who we are.