the Rabbi, the Student & the Comedian

I just came back from two days last week at Limmud in England where I sold lots of underwear.

The fascinating thing about being at a stall when everyone else is busy at a conference is that you see the word from behind your little table. My location was ideal, exactly outside the exit from the dinning room. We all know that Jews never pass up food, so hundreds of people streamed past my table three times a day. I got lots of curious stares, a couple of very unimpressed sneers but mainly a lot of smiles. My favorite were the 60's + men, who'd look, look away and then look again. My standard response was "It's just a bit of fun".


In the way of all good Chasidic Parables my 3 favorite encounters were:

the Rabbi:
I had a long discussion with a man who is an ordained Rabbi but I imagine the type that doesn't use his title. We talked about important things, the polarization of the Jewish world, the importance of tolerance and how age makes you wiser. It was very philosophical, I loved his outlook which is that life is much more complicated than we think possible and Jewish law and ritual come to help you make sense of it all. Tension happens when the rules/ritual govern our lives rather than guide them. What endeared him even more to me me was that he bought underwear for his nieces!

the student:
I gave a session at Limmud on how the brand came to be ... and why jewButt continues to get the brand's founder to do things like present at Limmud ... I was amazed by all the great feedback I got from the participants. One of the questions we discussed was what practices we thought were missing from Judaism that exist in other religions? The best answer I got was this one from a 15 year old, she said; "Islam has the idea of a Haj were you make a pilgrimage to Mecca and you only have to do this once in your life time, I like this better than the Jewish idea of having to live in Israel"... and I was thinking I'd hear things like I wish there were Christmas trees.

the Comedian:
There was of course one guy who thought my brand was particularly funny and pointed this out loudly, every opportunity he had. I was very amused when his wife came up and confided in me that he'd forgotten to bring clean underwear and he'd have to buy a pair of mine. I said I'd be happy to give him a pair for free if he'd send me a picture. He decided to pay but asked me what size I thought he was. What can you say to a boy but XL? A female friend of his, later brought back his purchase to exchange the color. Her boyfriend had given him a spare, new, pair of boxers and she was the proud owner of a pair of jewButt.

P.S It was wonderful and a really huge special thanks to Alicia and Anthony for all their help with my stall.

the wonderful undies

I have good news and I have bad news.

The bad news is that Heeb Magazine has decided not to publish the piece that the wonderful Simona Kogan wrote about jewButt. As I have learnt from one much younger but wiser than me, who wishes to remain anonymous (from here-on I'll refer to her as the Boss) you should never count your articles until they're published.

The good news is that I'll be doing a session on jewButt at Limud, it started of as just as a stall and then unexpectedly blossomed into a session opportunity. Thank you to lovely people at Limud but especially to the ever-helpful Anthony who has persistently answered my questions. Now I just need to decide what to do the session on. Your ideas are more than welcome. For those of you attending Limud this year, please come I'll be presenting Monday 24th December at 5:20 pm. What better way to celebrate Christmas Eve?

N.B. The picture is from the wonderful undies card by Edward Monkton that my sisters sent me when I started jewButt.

confiding in complete strangers

Have you ever noticed how you can tell a complete stranger pretty much anything because you know that they're not actually invested in you, or your problems, even a little bit?

I'm at a place with jewButt (and perhaps just in general) where I don't really know what's going to happen next. So I'm choosing to confde in you, my favourite set of strangers, my current woes:

1. I love my brand but it's success is directly connected to the amount of energy I put in and I'm finding it very challenging to put a consistent amount of energy in as I've already got a fulltime job and a life
2. Every day I have to force myself to do things I don't entirely enjoy for this brand I love and who's to say it's going anywhere? It's all very nice but so far most people think of it as my little hobby. I don't want to have a hobby, I want to have a business, thank you very much.
3. What say it just doesn't go anywhere, and it really may not, it will have consumed a tremendous amount of my time, my energy and not a small amount of my own personal capital and like I already said, who's to stay it's going anywhere at all?
4. At what point do I give up? Do I just say this is too hard - it was a cute idea, I had fun with it but I need to be smart and move on?

These are my fears about my brand and now I've shared them with you my anonymous friends, I'm going to continue with jewButt. I am making underwear despite the craziness, despite the possibility of failure, despite the financial insecurity and despite still having hundreds of pairs to sell from my pilot because I still think it's a good idea.

jewButt - kiss my butt.

Unlikely Product Placement

So it's been quite an eventful few weeks for the jewButt team. jewButt was honored to take part in the charity event Rock Around the Scroll, in support of good cause near you and raising money for local Jersualem soup kitchens. Kudos to Nadia Levine who is THE event organizer of the past high-holiday season.


The Kwaks played - it was their almost -debut performance. They were awesome. Despite the crowd having paid an entrance fee there was a reasonable amount of traffic and shopping at the jewButt stall. So thank you for buying and I hope you're enjoying your new wares, although we generally recommend you wear them under your clothes.

'tis the seaon

My current foray into the world of making underwear has shown me that there are three sorts of people when it comes to my brand:

1. Fans
2. Fence sitters
3. Dissenters

The fans are the best. There's nothing quite like showing my product to someone and seeing the look on their face when they get the box, turn it around in their hands and smile. This is the absolute high point. This is priceless even when it isn't followed by a sale because it is about emotional buy-in.


Fence Sitters as long as you are also buying you're more than welcome to sit on the fence but don't you want to just whole heartedly jump down into the brand? Hasn't all the wonderful subliminal marketing I've projected into marketing-land (telepathically because my marketing budget is limited) swayed you to the under-side?


Dissent is inevitable, and as far as I'm concerned "good on you", you have an opinion and I'm glad you're comfortable sharing it. Just remember though, I control the slogans so annoy me enough and you never know where it might be shared, or worn, for that matter.

Creating jewButt as been incredibly cathartic. It has increased my feelings of creativity, competency and added to the funny stories I get to tell. It has also been hard work, challenging and on occasion has made me think about who I am, where I'm going and what my priorities are.


So 'tis the season to ask for forgiveness - and to return to a truer and better version of ourselves - so if we have offended the knickers and I; forgive us, if we are have caused merriment then we're half way there and if we have had the honour of adorning your butt then we are serving our purpose. Perhaps everyone should make a brand or do the thing they've always wanted to (whatever that might be) but avoided because it's too hard, scary or unlikely. Just remember it's empowering, exhilarating and feels good to do one thing you love, at least some of the time.

So 'tis also the season to gratefully count my blessings.

Say no to cucumbers

Thank you Nerve and thank you Simona Kogan - check this out.

jewButt is psyched to have gotten the first slot - What a great gift for the holiday season!

From my mouth to your eyes: Have a good laugh, enjoy reading the column before it is replaced tomorrow in time for us all to do some serious repentance on Yom Kippur.

Between a rock and a hard place

The Lilith Blog - which is a cornerstone of Jewish feminism - wrote about my brand. It wasn't entirely complimentary but at least Rebecca agrees with my instincts even if she questions my wit. I thank her for giving me the moral high ground in terms of my choice of charity and well honestly, I think my slogans are funny.

Rebbeca writes "In conclusion, a question to ponder: Just how exactly does Jewish-themed underwear foster community?" Well the master-plan is that the brand will create a community of people wearing under garments that say funny things. In other words a community of consumers which is what you get any time people make their decision to buy based on brand name over product type.

It has dawned on me during the last couple of weeks that underwear has all kinds of connotations. This did cross my mind when I started out. The honest-to-goodness-truth is that I thought to myself, "I want to do something fun, I want to do something that won't cost me a tremendous amount in start-up capital and I want to do something that I can be a little bit edgy with".

Now I find myself caught between a rock and hard place, I'm not edgy enough for some, yet I am right on the edge and just about to jump if I talk about the brand to my male friends. Say the word 'underwear' in front of a man and his eyes will glaze over. Needless to say cave men be warned, ours are industrial strength cotton undies that are meant to make you laugh, so sweet boys, there are no Victoria's Secret lacies going on .... yet.

Anyways, jewButt isn't proud, we'll take your money regardless: We hope that you do think we're funny but you should also buy us if it is just because you want to support the causes we do.

jewButt: buy now

World Famous in Wellington

In what can only be described as the opposite of a media frenzy, I find myself at the center of a storm-in-a-teacup and loving it. Late in July, I was interviewed by the wonderful Meredith Price of the Jerusalem Post, we met at a cafe in Tel Aviv. She brought her gorgeous husky dog and we chatted about jewButt. This was my first ever meeting with the press, I felt a bit nervous, Tel Aviv was very hot but Meredith was great. I asked if I could see the article before it went to press - she said she "no" but she promised an article that I'd like - and she delivered. I loved the article and eagerly waited for people to notice. The response wasn't overwhelming.

I'm currently in Wellington, New Zealand. A friendly and picturesque location but not one known as a particular center of the Jewish World. So I was flabbergasted when the very next day I got an e-mail from the Wellington Wide Newspaper who had picked up the story on the "wire". They wanted a picture, I said "In a convenient coincidence I'm in town", they sent a journalist and a photographer - Article Number Two - came out in the paper today. I would put the link here for y'all but it didn't make their online edition. Furthermore, and I didn't hear the bite myself, there was a mention made on the news by a local radio station. Yes, it would appear that jewButt is newsworthy in New Zealand, at least. I also did an interview with a great local journalist at the New Zealand Jewish Chronicle. Things just keep on getting better.

Then and probably this is the icing on the cake, one of the proverbial Jewish bloggers, I have even stumbled upon her stuff completely unprompted, Esther, blogged about me. What an honour. My favorite comment was

... this product continues the trend of lowercasing proper names, like
birthright israel does, and taking that trespass one step further by lowercasing
the "jew" part and uppercasing the "Butt."

Esther, you are right butt I am trying to build a brand here and one that speaks to the whole David & Goliath and Paul Frank generation, so of course I put the emphasis in the wrong place. Next time you're in Jerusalem I'll take you to brunch at Shmuels (SO over Tal Bagles), I'll show you my wears and we'll talk.

www.nowebsite.com

I work for a technology company when I'm not making underwear so I understand completely how critical it is to have a compelling website. I even know how google add words work . This knowledge is mainly theoretical because like many online things, it looks simple but the reality is more complicated and so unless you have an account manager at google and are willing to spend some money, it is hard to be a big-business success. So what qualifies as a big business web success, Skype suddenly stopping to work, or actually putting paypal into the back end of your site hosted on Yahoo? Yes I am bitching about the biggest web companies in the world, I respect them, they do a great job, they set the bar high but they sure don't make it easy for people like me.

So why don't I have a website yet? Well, while I definitely know what is possible my budget is limited. You want to have a site that looks good, simple, clean and well programmed. I had fantasies of a site like this one (I salute you guys, you got it 100% right, clever branding, bringing the hand made to the web and a mention on techcrunch, now that's my idea of success) but guess what? You need to have an angel round or some money in the bank to even get close. Any interested parties out there? I'll exchange ownership for money, or free knickers for design and programming.

So what does jewButt have? We have an idea that kicks butt. Every single time I show this product to someone in my target market they giggle - that's a good sign.

First of all to give thanks where they are due: Thank you Jeremy for your hard work on jewButt.com despite everything especially my completely unrealistic expectations and thank you Ronen for saving my paypal Butt. Most importantly, thank you every body else for giggling because I've got a long way to go and without your laughter, it's unlikely to happen.

When will the site actually go live? Good question hopefully by Sunday morning Israel time. Criticisms please give them cautiously, I'm likely to implode, investors feel free to e-mail.

WWBDN?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces. (- First Bridget Jone's Movie.)

I spent the summer of 1997 working in New England at a summer camp, I loved it. We’d spend our days off at the local strip mall and that summer was the summer of WWJDN or 'What would Jesus do now?' jewelry. Jesus is not really up my alley but what would Bridget do now that is an entirely different dialect, one that I can absolutely relate to and there is, of course, only one Bridget Jones.

I just flew 24 hours to be with my family. The journey involved long lay-overs where I managed to spend way too much money on pretty shoes, a pedicure and blow drying my hair straight. I immediately smudged the pedicure, realized that dead straight hair is not a good plane look and also promptly managed to forget my bottle of dirt-cheap-whiskey on the inter-terminal bus. In other words I had a long series of Bridget Jone's moments. The inter-terminal bus just pulled up alongside my window, WWBDN – she’d shout out to the lovely couple enjoying a glass of wine at 1:40 pm local time, ask them to watch the bags containing all the earthly possessions she deemed worth schlepping across the world and make a mad-dash to get it back.

I am reunited with the cheap liquor, my belongings are intact and I couldn’t even thank the driver, he'd popped out – so I whipped the bottle out from behind his seat and sprinted back to my luggage. He’ll be upset later when he realizes the free bottle of whiskey he thought he'd just scored, has gone.

I also flew from the a very hot summer, the day I left it was 40◦c, to a nice chilly Antarctic winter and what am I wearing on my feet – well the very pretty sandals with the diamante panels I just bought, of course. Don't think I don’t have an entirely warmer and more practical pair of boots in my carry on but I’ll be damned if I’m putting those on. WWBDN? – why freeze of course.

The other thing about international travel, for those of us that do not hail from the USA, where luggage restrictions are unheard of and people often travel with two small trailers, is a 20 kilo luggage limit. You can get away with 26 depending on how much you’re willing to flirt at check-in. WWBDN? What ever it takes – I’m going to start traveling with boxes of jewButt to give away…

Now don’t get me wrong I’m as fond of Carrie as a modern woman who loves New York City ought to be. She is glamorous, she wears milanos (some would argue she made them famous), she looks good with straight or curly hair and she is undaunted by international travel. I aim for Carrie but realistically Bridget is the every-woman. Carrie lands in Paris looking unwrinkled and ready to shop. Bridget goes on holiday to Thailand, almost hooks up with the guy we all know is an incorrigible womanizer from the first movie, gets drugs planted on her and ends up in jail. I don’t smuggle drugs but bringing kosher food into New Zealand makes one’s heart beat unnecessarily fast and who hasn’t had a relationship with an incorrigible womanizer? WWBDN – she’d make underwear that’s what she’d do.

Now I’m going to reapply lip gloss, wear my glamorous gold Carrie wrap and sell jewButt. 950 pairs to go.

Meaning in the Madness

Today is the saddest day in the Jewish Calendar so this calls for my only ever partially serious post.

So while you, all five of you (my close family and friends that are following along so far) thought that jewButt was just fun and games, I feel the need to preemptively justify how I can do something silly with something as serious as religion, not just any religion but the one I happen to be a card-holding member of.

Top 3 Reasons I decided to do jewButt:


1. I tried for a really long time to ignore the idea but it wouldn't go away.


2. (Think back to my brand name jewButt.) BUT what else am I?


3. My gosh I've had more fun with this than anything I've done in quite sometime and I firmly believe that a big part of why we're on this Earth is to enjoy ourselves (responsibly of course).

Now the friend that removed me from his Facebook friend's list contended that my logo took a holy symbol and made light of it. One day when I'm rich and famous I'll run a competition where people can win a life times' supply of knickers by telling what my logo is and why it has wings (think Red Bull).

My response is to say that I believe that we're all holy in our entirety, including all our bodies, all our parts and a symbol is - well a symbol - something open to interpretation. Furthermore, there's plenty holy, or at the very least worthwhile, in building community, fostering good humour and supporting the disenfranchised. These are all things I hope my brand will do. So while jewButt will most probably not end world famine, global warming or modern slavery, if things go as I plan; we will have fun, we will explore our identities and we'll give some money out to worthy causes along the way.

This day is about senseless destruction and loss, it's about mourning a golden age, a holier time and remembering the darker periods of our history. Yet, it also has inherent themes of rebirth, of turning a corner, of yearning for better, or at least for different and of taking comfort where we find it. I suspect that the 10 Commandments will not be damaged in anyway as a result of my brand (Folks there's a clue there, go back and look at the logo), and their meaning will long out live the milli-second-of-a-splash that jewButt makes. However, I intend to build this brand whole-heartedly and to give it my best shot.

Fade to the golden 80's glory of Pat...

In the beginning ...

Day 1
I've just become a participant in the underwear business: I had an idea, I bought a domain and then I left it for almost a year. In this time I spoke to everyone I know about my idea, I visited an underwear factory and met with the founder of a local lingerie chain.

The overall professional consensus was that it was a cute idea. It seems that everyone has a slogan they want on underwear but very few people thought I should actually go ahead and do it. I have a friend who said think small, start with pilot, make a few pairs and take it from there. This is exactly what I decided to do. 1,000 pairs of underwear, two slogans and one style later -jewButt™ is born - thank you Michael.

Day 2
My sister has a brand too, hers is real brand - my brand is like the illegitimate half sibbling with somewhat questionable lineage ... I have been involved with her brand since it's inception, so I know that the key to building a brand is, well, having a brand. That means having an aesthetic that clearly defines your product, your audience and who you are.

I went to the best branding people I know and told them about my idea. They got it straight away, they even thought it was funny which was reassuring and I love what they came up with. In fact almost everyone loves what they came up with.

Think about it before telling me you don't love it, remember I put slogans on underwear in my spare time.

Day 3
I chose a style and I bought 1,000 pairs of underwear wholesale (well more like retail without VAT) and I then drove around with 1,000 pairs of underwear in my car for a good couple of weeks as we set up the printing.

[Funny side story - I have a day job, we have a summer intern at my day job. I pick him up to drive him to work on his very first day, we have a slight miscommunication about the location I'm to meet him at, so he runs up and down the hill at the entrance/exit to Jerusalem on a very hot day, he finally gets into the car and we zoom off to work. I notice a strange clanking noise, he says "Ah sounds like you have a flat tire", I say "You know how to change a tire, right?" We pull over and he changes the tire but not before we shuffle 1,000 pairs of underwear out of the trunk and onto the back seat. The funniest bit was that he didn't even ask me why I had 1,000 pairs of underwear in my trunk.]

Finally the underwear reaches the printers and they are just glad my first run is on bikini briefs and not thongs (too little fabric). I also spend half a day supervising the printing of my packaging. Little pink and gold boxes - they are beautiful.

Day 4
I FREAK OUT. This is a little incorrect, in fact I freak out every day at every step of the process. This is how a freak out goes: What am I thinking? Who the hell is going to buy this underwear? Where am I going to sell the underwear? Why am I doing this again?

The hardest part was probably signing off on the production orders, I'm very good a building budgets and managing production processes it's my day job but it all takes on an entirely new level of seriousness when the money to pay for the work comes out of my very own, personal, bank account.

Day 5
I contact my friend who works at the Jerusalem Rape Crisis Center to see if I can link the brand to the center and give them some of my profits in return. Whenever I tell people about this they knowingly nod, yes social action is important. I'm a feminist, I like goldfish to ride bicycles and jewButt is a feminist brand. It is not my intention to sell undies using cute visuals of women's bums.

Unfortunately sexual abuse is often directed at my gender and I like the Jerusalem Rape Crisis Center because it supports the entire Jerusalem community regardless of gender, nationality or religion and they need money. I hope to make money. Seems like a win-win to me.

Day 6
I have my first sale at a friends house. About 40 people show up (mainly friends but they count too) and I sell about 30 pairs. So pretty much everyone bought a pair and some of the friends that came were boys, so they were entirely there in the role of moral support.

Houston we have lift off.

It's early days, people like the product, they think it's funny, it makes them laugh, they want more, everyone wants thongs - I'll have to warn the printers. I'm getting good feedback. Only one friend has told me that he's had to remove me from his facebook friend list because he can't associate himself with my logo - hmmm well at least he noticed I changed my profile picture.

Day 7
I start this blog.
I look forward to resting, it's Shabbat tonight.