Jewcy has been my digital shtetl (as Michael Weiss would say), since last fall. During the first third of that period, I was a blogger for the late, lamented Cabal; in the latter two thirds, I've had the privilege of being temporary custodian (as Tim Russert would say) of Jewcy's political coverage. It's been an eventful, tumultuous stretch of time, but edifying as well. We learned that contrarianism is occasionally wrong --- shocking, I know --- as, for example, black people are not dumber than white people.

We learned that when it comes to pre-emptively surrendering ancient liberties to theUlli The German Shepherd: My dog, if I had a dog exponents of Sharia, Canadians have us Yanks dominated (we don't pre-emptively surrender our liberties to Muslim theocrats; we pre-emptively surrender our liberties because of Muslim theocrats). We learned that marginally-classier-than-Apollo Braun Jewish opponents of Barack Obama will stoop to anything, including doctoring his advisors' language, to insinuate that he is an antisemite. We learned that Leon Wieseltier's pre-eminent place in the public intellectual world is a symptom of profound cultural rot. And we learned that Obama is more in tune with Jewish culture than anybody who's gotten as close as he has to the presidency --- and that doesn't necessarily augur well if he's elected.

In other words, it's been a blast writing for you, editing for you, and occasionally duking it out in comments threads. And now it's time for me to move on. I'm so tired of America, as Rufus Wainwright would say, and so I'm leaving --- first to go to Israel, from which I'll come back, and then to move to England, where I'll be living for the foreseeable future. (More details here and in my revamped bio.) In the meantime, I'm going to do a month-or-two rotation blogging for The Art of the Possible, a brilliant entrepreneurial left-libertarian group blog I recommend all you hipsters check out soon, so that you can claim you were into it way before it sold out (when it was still cool). And also, there are a couple of projects that have been sitting on my back burner for too long, that I need either to finish or ditch before setting sail.

If there's one message I want to leave you with, it's that all opposition to Barack Obama is racist this small corner of the web is home to some of the most vibrant, fresh ideas going on anywhere (and some of the best original artwork!), so keep reading. And also, we really are enough of a shtetl that if you feel like dropping me a line, please do. That goes for everyone, including our own Castor-Pollux duo Naftali and Ismail, but not including the guy who keeps posting those several thousand word neo-Nazi tracts or that asshole "Kid Blast," who is anything but. You know where the messaging tab is (top right quadrant of the home page).

When Izzy left, she posted pictures of her cats. I have no pets; however, if I did, I would have a German shepherd dog named Ulli, pictured conceptually above. Adieu, adieu.

Me: Missing you alreadySo, this week when I rest for Shabbat, I'll be resting for good. At least as far as Faithhacker is concerned. I'll be leaving after I post tomorrow, and not coming back as a blogger...

I could blame this decision on the baby I'm about to have, or on the book deadline I'm racing... but the truth is that I just feel I'm running out of things to say. And I feel there are loads of you with lots of wonderful things to say...

And over the past 7 months, I've come to respect and love this community (even some of the anonymous crazies), so the last thing I want to do is let you down. I'd hate to start totally "phoning in" all my blog posts, just to avoid quitting.

I was going to wait until tomorrow to tell you this, but I'm a terrible secret-keeper. And sitting here, searching for something to talk about (Shavuot? the Jews of Baltimore? The fact that they're tearing down Shabbtai Zvi's house?) I wanted to get this out of the way:

Goodbye!

I think that Faithhacker is an amazing thing. I think that Jewcy is doing something really important-- creating a space that brings together different kinds of Jews for real dialogue. I think that this is a special place on the web, an honest but (usually) respectful forum. It can be surprising, iconoclastic, human. It reaches back to for a tradition, but asks blunt questions rooted in an altogether contemporary mindset.

I'll miss it. And you.

And so of course I'll still be lurking about here. But I can't think of 40 story ideas a month anymore... and there are many many people who know far more than me, and have fresh new ideas for posts. So it's time for them to take over. "Take it to the next level."

I'll be hanging out, learning from them. And so I'll see you here.

(and now that that's said... I can throw up a few last posts without feeling like a secret-keeper)