Jewish Mailing Lists and Newsgroups


© Beth Lewis
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Feb 2, 1999


A wealth of information and relationships await you through the use of mailing lists and newsgroups. Mailing lists are informational emails delivered to your inbox on a regular basis. When you sign up for a mailing list, you should find out what kind of mailing list it is, and how often you can expect to receive messages. A moderated list is one where all messages go through a moderator, or list owner, prior to distribution to the group. An unmoderated list is more like a free-for-all, that may have too many messages with questionable content. Typically, a moderated list means higher quality messages that are on-topic and relevant.

A newsgroup is a totally different entity from mailing lists. A newsgroup is not web-based. Instead, you can use a program like Microsoft's Outlook Express to view messages from a particular server. Messages and responses are constantly being posted from all over the world. Oftentimes, you have to weed through some advertisements and negative messages. For example, on the Jewish newsgroups, there are countless anti-semitic and inflammatory messages. But, if you ignore those, you can find important and timely information. Also, you can post your own messages, which is often useful for spreading the word about new web sites and products.

Newsgroups and mailing lists are great internet resources to try. Remember that you can always unsubscribe from any list or group, if you are dissatisfied with the content or amount of messages.

Here's a sampling of the best Jewish mailing lists and newsgroups on the web:

Mailing Lists:

Liszt Directory
The definitive directory of mailing lists. Search on any key word (try "Jew," for example) and find dozens of lists for your interests.

Torah Fax
Highly recommended! Rabbi Zalmen Marozov sends a daily email with commentary on the week's Parsha.

Shamash List of Lists
Here's a comprehensive list of over 250 mailing lists, in alphabetical order.

Jewish Computing
Hebrew Translating
Jewish Philanthropy
These three mailing lists focus on specialized topics and are owned by David Grossman, who resides in Israel.

Newsgroups:

soc.culture.jewish
alt.humor.jewish
alt.music.jewish
alt.personals.jewish
soc.culture.jewish.parenting
rec.humor.jewish
These are examples of some of the more popular Jewish newsgroups available. With over 28,000 newsgroups in the world, you certainly can find many more.

Newsgroup Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Newsgroups are often a little trickier to set up. This link takes you to a FAQ page that should answer your basic questions.