Earlier this month, we were excited to read about JewishGigs.com - a new job board for the Jewish gig marketplace. A digital tool that organizes service providers and temporary job opportunities in service of enhancing the work of Jewish organizations is just what we need.
As the co-hosts of the Wondering Jews Podcast, We’ve worked to create a cultural Jewish community centered around the one thing all our Jewish friends can agree on… cannabis! Each episode, we smoke a different strain of cannabis and delve into a high-minded conversation about Jewish culture and learning. Over the past 90+ episodes, we’ve done torah study, used a random number generator to learn about one of the 613 commandments, and even tested out different types of apples to figure out which one makes for the perfect Rosh Hashanah smoking apparatus (it’s the Bubbe Smith).
We thought that JewishGigs.com would be a perfect partner for us to take our podcast to the next level so that we could find a Rabbi or Jewish thought leader who would want to join us as a co-host to engage us to have more meaningful conversations around Judaism. However, our gig listing on JewishGigs.com was rejected. We were told that because cannabis is prohibited at the federal level, they would not approve the post.
Of course, we were disappointed and didn’t understand why we could post our job posting on national job boards or LinkedIn, but not on JewishGigs.com, but we respected their decision and edited the posting to remove references to cannabis, but the updated post was rejected, because we included a link to our website, which were were told “could be seen by someone as our site being used as a recruiting mechanism for use of a product that is illegal at the Federal level.”
Plant medicine’s connections to Judaism is powerful, as evident in YIVO’s recently closed exhibit Am Yisrael High: The Story of Jews and Cannabis and the dozens ofJewish psychedelic summits held around the country over the past few years.
JewishGigs.com is powered by Moishe House and BBYO, organizations whose missions state that they provide for a vibrant Jewish community for young adults as they create meaningful Jewish experiences. Unfortunately, this decision is a missed opportunity to provide meaningful Jewish experiences to a larger segment of American Jews.
Josh and Roy
Co-Hosts of the Wondering Jews Podcast
