Anglo Internet entrepreneurs aim to upgrade capital's status

Conventional wisdom has it that Tel Aviv is Israel's entertainment capital and that Jerusalem is a holy city resembling more of an archaeology museum than a place to live for people who like to go out and have fun. Two Anglo Internet entrepreneurs are now trying to change that image.

Together with Start Up Jerusalem, a non-profit organization founded by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, they created Jerusalem.com, an online guide that features houses of worship and museums, but also restaurants, clubs, bars, cafes and many other famous and lesser-known tourist attractions.

But the new project, which replaces the team's previous Web site, 'Jerusalemite' has some regular readers missing the charm - and some of the content - that made the less commercial and more youthful site popular with many of the capital's English speaking surfers.

"Jerusalem gets a bad rep, but there's a lot more going on here than the city gets respect for," said Ben Jacobson, the co-manager of the new site, which went online last week but is still a work in progress. "We feel that Jerusalem deserves more respect than it gets in terms of tourism and culture. I don't need to explain why the city deserves to be considered one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world. But it's just not right now." Last year, 2.8 million visitors came to Jerusalem and only five percent of them participated in a cultural event of some kind, the Boston native added. "We can do a lot better than that. There's a lot we can do to strengthen the infrastructure and the mechanisms for getting people involved and making people feel that they belong here, so they feel at home and explore the city."

Before devoting his time to 'Jerusalem.com, Jacobson and his friend, the freelance journalist and blogger Harry Rubenstein, ran "Jerusalemite," an English-language blog and culture guide. Until it was put on ice two months ago, about 2,000 people visited Jerusalemite every day. With the new site, the two thirty-somethings hope to reach 10,000 surfers a day.

"Jerusalemite" was popular for its events section but also for the blog entries, which covered the city's cultural life from every angle imaginable.

"We did interviews with some big movers and shakers," Jacobson said, referring to people like the mayoral candidate of Green Leaf party or the director of the Israel Festival, "as well as with smaller and more quirky people, like the head of the Jerusalem Print Workshop. They have old European printing presses from hundreds of years ago and people come from all over the world to use these presses. It's just a cool place. It's a Jerusalem cultural institution that most people don't know about."

While Jacobson and Rubenstein, who both moved from the U.S. to the capital in the mid-1990s, told Anglo File they intend on continuing to feature both "quirky little haunts" and more high-profile venues, there will be one main difference between "Jerusalemite" and Jerusalem.com: the youthful writing style. At the new site, sentences like "Downtown's main thoroughfare is officially a big balagan" will no longer have a place.

"Our brand voice is that something we'll have to change a little bit, we'll have to make it more mainstream and a little less snarky, a little less edgy," Jacobson admitted, pointing out that "it's a serious dot com model" inspired by sites such as Chicago.com and Toronto.com. Some readers, however, said they miss the team's old material. "The new site is definitely more commercial," said David Abitbol, founder and editor of the popular Jewlicious blog. "You can see the influence of a search engine optimization consultant everywhere." Abitbol said that as a Jerusalem resident he often consulted the old site and recommended it to others.

"It had entertaining and informative posts, written by identifiable personalities," he told Anglo File. "As far as the new site goes, I can't find the old content at all. I don't begrudge anyone making a decision based on economic advantages and realities. [But] having a little more of the 'Jerusalemite' spirit on Jerusalem.com would improve the site tremendously."