Bronfmanim Listserv Statement of Values, Introduction of the Groundskeeper Committee, and Rules

Last Updated: May 22, 2024

The Bronfmanim Listserv is a virtual open space where members of our pluralistic community can share ideas, ask questions, read, and connect. Our goal for this listserv is to create a space for conversation and discussion amongst this intergenerational, diverse group of alumni.

The Listserv Groundskeeper Committee (“LGC”, listservGC@bronfman.org) is a rotating group of alumni aiming to ensure that engagement remains respectful and productive. If you care about the work we’re doing, inquire about joining!

The rules and best practices in this document are the LGC’s attempt to keep the Listserv diverse, open, inclusive, and interesting.

Table of Contents

Listserv Rules
Best (and Worst) Practices
Listserv Values
Alternative Ways to Communicate
The Role of the Groundskeeper Committee
The Fineprint: Disclaimers & Liability

 

Listserv Rules

Privacy Violation

• Confidentiality: Members of this community should not share outside the Listserv content or posts shared by others without express permission from the author. This is a closed and private space for free exchange of ideas.
• No Retaliation: Acts of harassment, violence, threats of violence or material injury, doxxing, and other malicious attacks on another member of this community will not be tolerated.

Hurtful Posting

• No Personal Attacks: Posts should focus on content and ideas, and should not attack the character or good faith of another member of this community. Any questioning of an ideological or religious belief, commitment, or observance should be performed without impugning the character of the person holding that belief, commitment, or observance.
• No Discrimination or Harassment: Posts constituting discrimination or harassment of any kind based on protected categories are not allowed.

 

Best (and Worst) Practices

Please keep the list diverse and interesting by employing these practices:

• Add to the conversation: Explain why you’re linking to an article, or how you disagree with a prior post, rather than just sharing the link.
• “Take space, make space”:  Your voice is important! If you have a perspective that feels unheard in the Bronfman community, this is a place you can share it. This is also a large listserv. Consider whether the tone or frequency of your posts make others less comfortable posting.
• Tell your story: Include information from your life, not just from articles. This is the most likely way to provide content people haven’t heard before.
• Experiment: Don’t feel your post needs to be brilliant, fully-formed, following mainstream (or “Bronfman mainstream”) views.
• Grow conversations: If a person’s post impacted you, feel welcome to add your perspective on the topic.
• Start new threads: If you want to change the subject or direction of a discussion, start a new thread for the new conversation. 
• Respect other people and the group: Be generous in your expression and in your interpretation.

 

Please keep the list open and inclusive by avoiding these practices:

• Small group conversations: Arguments with frequent posts between just a few posters. (Take it offline or off the listserv.)
• “Piling on”: When multiple respondents disagree in the same way with a single poster, this can make people feel their opinions, or they themselves, are not welcome on the list.
• Assuming people will agree with you—this is quite a diverse community. Be open to hearing other perspectives.
• Forwards: Forwarding or sharing an article/link with no explanation of why you find it relevant to share with the listserv.
• Excessive self-promotion: it’s interesting that you perform sign language plays underwater, but maybe offer people a signup address rather than posting each event

 

Listserv Values

עשה לך רב, וקנה לך חבר, והוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות. 

Appoint for yourself a teacher, and acquire for yourself a friend, and judge all people favorably.

These are the values we hope to encourage, and which the LGC and the Rules exist in service of promoting:

• • Variety of Conversation: Within appropriate guardrails of respect, all topics of general interest are encouraged. Though we are a Jewish community, not all topics need to cover something explicitly Jewish.
  • Openness: The best Listserv posts include opinions, perspectives, questions, ideas, and openness to not having a full understanding of a topic. We ask you to create listserv posts that open a discussion and invite a conversation. At the same time, be generous in how you read posts from others—do your best to assume good faith and to create and participate in open discussion.
  • Inclusion and Experimentation: Everyone should feel comfortable posting to the Listserv. As such, we encourage everyone to remember that not every post must be perfectly articulated—posts should be received in the spirit of experimenting with ideas, in the same way you would treat a comment heard in a Fellowship text study. 

 

Alternative Ways to Communicate

Remember, too, that you can always reply to someone privately if you are more comfortable doing so—or if you think they might be more comfortable receiving a private response. 

You can also request that the Groundskeeper Committee help set up a Zoom conversation about a topic where face-to-face conversation would promote more productive engagement and greater understanding. 

Remember, too, that job listings should be sent to jobs@bronfman.org and housing offers/requests should be sent to housing@bronfman.org. These messages will be compiled and sent in a separate email.

Listserv members can contact the LGC with questions, comments or to forward a message you want to “flag” by emailing listservGC@bronfman.org.

 

The Role of the Groundskeeper Committee

We recognize that the rules above are subject to interpretation and disagreement, and therefore will review cases as a LGC. 

If an LGC member or staff member observes posts on the Listserv that may violate one or more of these rules, they will post to the WhatsApp group citing the nature of the violation and a recommendation for next steps. Posts may also be “flagged” to the LGC by any member of the Listserv by forwarding it to listservGC@bronfman.org. 

If a majority of the LGC determines that a poster has violated a rule, an intervention will be initiated. The type of intervention will depend on the severity of the violation, past violations of the poster on the Listserv, and other contributing factors. 

Interventions can include any of the following: 

• A warning/explanation from a LGC member
• A request to engage in off-line dialogue with another community member
• Being muted from the relevant thread. 
• Being moderated for a period of time, such that any listserv posts must be approved by a LGC or Bronfman staff member.
• Suspension from the listserv for a set amount of time, or permanently. (This would be reserved for serious violations. The decision would be made by the Bronfman staff after the LGC determines other interventions are insufficient.)

The LGC may also determine that the thread from which a certain post comes should be ended or migrated to Zoom, that moderation should be introduced, or that the full Listserv should be paused. These decisions may be made in concert with Bronfman Staff. 

We do not expect any of these processes to happen often. Our hope is that a defined process visible to all will function like clear traffic signs and speed limits: all members of the Listserv can feel confident posting and participating knowing that there are rules that will be enforced. 

 

Listserv Groundskeeper Committee (LGC)

We are now entering our fourth decade of keeping the Bronfman Listserv, which comprises an ever-expanding, intergenerational membership of 700+ subscribers. Alumni are added to the listserv after they graduate high school, and there are alumni on the listserv from many walks of life, ages, life stages and more. The Listserv represents an extraordinary opportunity to learn with a pluralistic community.  As the number of alumni grows, we realize that a flourishing, varied, conversational landscape requires charging dedicated members of this community with fostering it. 

As such, the Bronfman staff and board have decided to create a Listserv Groundskeeper Committee “LGC” —a rotating group of alumni who promote conversation on the Listserv and, when called for, help mediate conflicts to ensure that engagement remains respectful and productive. Beginning in early 2021, a collaboration of board members, alumni, and staff led to the development of this committee and everything outlined below.

By and large, the LGC’s role will be as gardeners tending the Listserv: seeding conversations, encouraging a variety of voices, and hosting live chats when threads will be better continued in real-time Zooms. The LGC will also be the body that determines if a post has violated the Listserv’s Rules. 

In addition to these roles, the LGC will also be charged with advising the staff if and when a thread should be ended or moderated (and/or migrated to a virtual face-to-face discussion), or if the full Listserv should be temporarily suspended—but our hope is that with values and guardrails more proactively articulated, these kinds of interventions will not be needed.

The current members of the Listserv LGC are:

• Stephanie Berger ’17
• Elisabeth Cohen ’01 (Chairperson)
• Ellie Gettinger ’98
• Amir Karger ’89
• Brett Krichiver ’90
• Josephine Schizer ’19

Staff Support: Elizabeth Ochs, Becky Voorwinde

About the Listserv

The Listserv is an intergenerational community of 700+ Bronfman alumni ranging in age from recent high school graduates to the first fellowship cohort from 1987. 

We encourage you to look at the Listserv as an extension of your Fellowship experience; approach your outreach to its members with the same care, tact, and curiosity that you brought to your conversations on the Fellowship. Be prepared to have difficult conversations, offering your own opinions honestly, and considering the perspectives of others even if you strongly disagree. We invite you to enter each exchange with an open mind and a desire to widen your perspective and lens.

 

The Fineprint

Disclaimer

This is provided as a service of the The Bronfman Fellowship (Bronfman). Bronfman accepts no responsibility for the opinions and information posted by others. Bronfman disclaims all warranties with regard to information posted, whether by Bronfman or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall Bronfman be liable for any special, indirect or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits, arising out of, or in connection with, the use or performance of any information posted. Bronfman administrators nor the administrators of the host site can verify the content of postings for accuracy or be held accountable for message content.

Parties submitting messages bear sole responsibility and liability for the content of their postings. This includes any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. By posting such material, the posting party warrants and represents that it owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants Bronfman and users of these services the non-exclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print and use such information or other material.

Bronfman does not actively monitor these services for inappropriate postings, and does not on its own undertake editorial control of postings. However, in the event that any inappropriate posting is brought to Bronfman’s attention, Bronfman will take appropriate action as described below. Bronfman reserves the right to terminate the access of any user who does not abide by these guidelines and rules.

Limitation of Liability and Indemnity

All subscribers must accept responsibility for their own acts, and to accept that an act by another subscriber that damages them must not be blamed on us, but on the other subscriber. Therefore, as a condition of participation, participants must agree as follows:

You agree that Bronfman will not be responsible to you for any indirect, consequential, special or punitive damages or losses you may incur in connection with our listserv or boards or any of the data or other materials transmitted through or residing on our listserv or boards, even if Bronfman has been advised of the possibility of such damage or loss. In addition, you agree to defend and indemnify Bronfman, its officers, directors, employees, and agents and hold Bronfman, its officers, directors, employees, and agents harmless from and against any and all claims, proceedings damages, injuries, liabilities losses, costs and expenses (including attorneys fees) relating to any acts or omissions by you or materials or information transmitted by you in connection with our listserv or boards leading wholly or partially to claims against Bronfman, its officers, directors, employees, or agents or our listserv or boards by other users or third parties.