About

"Jewish Life Connections"

Mission

To assist Jewish people who would like to get involved in the Jewish community by providing a centralized, organized and independent repository for Jewish social, religious, sports, and volunteer events in the Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia regions.

Why was CHAInections.com started?

Prior to CHAInections.com, it was difficult to tell new people how to get involved in the Jewish young adult community.

Information about email lists, website addresses, Jewish group coordinator contact information, etc. would have to be passed on to the new Jewish young adult. This list could very easily be many pages. While many groups did post events for each-other, one centralized, organized and independent repository for this information did not exists.

Many new young adults would attend a Jewish group event, and have a great time. Since there was not an easy way to find out about future events, some did not come to another event until months or years later.

After the young adult is signed up for the email lists, visits the websites, and corresponds with the group coordinators, it becomes confusing with respect to what event is on which date. Some young adults were missing events because they did not get the invite, email, etc. Some dismissed the event because they thought they could not attend; Then when their plans changed, they did not remember about the event.

Event information was passed to young adults as an event on a specific date. If you were looking to find an event to attend on a given date, you would have to search through all of your emails, websites, etc. to find the events for that night.

How is CHAInections.com different?

CHAInections.com is centralized, because it lists all of these events on the CHAInections.com site. In general, all events targeting the Jewish young adult community, in the geographical regions listed, will be placed on the calendar.

CHAInections.com is organized, because it lists all of these events in a monthly, weekly, daily calendar format and can be searched using many parameters. To find a Shabbat dinner on a Friday, just look under that date.

CHAInections.com is independent, because CHAInections.com does not coordinate any events. This allows all events to be listed without a conflict of interest.

What about Facebook.com and Evite.com?

The Jewish community has begun to utilize Facebook.com and Evite.com for group and event organization.

CHAInections.com supports the use of these two sites, along with JewishTimes.com, Associated.org, GesherCity.org, etc.

CHAInections.com has made many changes since its start in March, 2007. This is to ensure that CHAInections.com is a utility that enhances the other utilities the Jewish young adult coordinators are already using.

CHAInections.com provides links to the other site's groups, events and calendars. There is also a Facebook.com application to view some of the site and calendar from within facebook.

How does CHAInections.com benefit the Jewish young adult coordinators?

Jewish young adult coordinators can use the calendar to research the dates other groups and organizations have already planned events. This helps to reduce multiple events of the same type on the same night.

For example, if a shul is having a Shabbat dinner for the Jewish young adults, it is helpful to see which other shul's are having a dinner the same night. Both shuls can have the dinner the same night, but will be aware of the other dinners and events.

Is CHAInections.com a for-profit company?

At this time, no. CHAInections.com is just a website for the calendar. The costs of the server, event data collection resources and programming time are donated. Overall, it is a goodwill venture.

Is CHAInections.com a subsidiary of a Jewish Agency?

No. CHAInections.com is a totally independent website. It is not a subsidiary of any Jewish organization, shul, group, etc.