Students Web home makes Europe one big mishpoche

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PARIS — Inviting students from 32 European countries to take a "daily online kosher coffee break" for Jewish identity and unity, a sleek new Web site hopes the continent's Jewish youth movements will come out of their shells.

The site, the brainchild of the European Union of Jewish Students, has all the latest technology, with chat rooms, videos, classified ads and even offers all those who register free e-mail. The site was launched a few months ago at www.eujs.org.

Now it just needs students.

"We wanted to find a way to get as many people involved as we could across Europe, so we came up with the Web site as a way to reach everyone," said Joelle Fiss, 24, the full-time chair of the group, who is based in Brussels.

"We think it is a way for people to integrate Judaism in their daily lives. They can post their opinions, have their own e-mail for their Jewish contacts, and keep in touch with the people they meet across Europe."

There are approximately 170,000 Jewish students across Europe, and each nation has its own student group. Students gather once per year at a conference to jam all the learning, organizing and friendship building they can in a few days.

Yet after such gatherings, students go their separate ways and tend to lose the contacts they made, Fiss said. Moreover, many complained that their local Jewish student groups have become a bit stale, mostly offering the same old pizza parties and karaoke each month.

EUJS is hoping students will use the site to continue the conversations they begin at meetings and fetes that go on across Europe.

That was the way the site got started. According to the Web site, "after having experienced a week of stormy debates and outrageous cocktails," Jewish students in Amsterdam dreamed up the site so they could continue to build on the excitement of their meeting.

The site definitely has a hip touch to it, with a glowing yellow background and a polished but welcoming feel. "Whether you prefer chatting in Danish to a Polish vodka-sipper in Geneva, or joking in German over a British tea in Rome, you have reached the place where minds are connecting by the second," it reads.

Fiss noted the vibrancy of the site is certainly intentional. "I think that Jewish life can be sexy…We think you can have fun and learn at the same time."

While the site is entirely in English, Webmaster Benjamin Van Gelder, a 22-year-old Amsterdam resident, says he hopes there will be some Russian-language content and that conversations are welcome in any language.

He hopes particularly that the site will catch on in smaller, isolated countries. "When I was in Hungary last year for the annual student conference, I was amazed to meet so many people from countries with small Jewish populations. I think we often underestimate them. A lot of them have e-mail and use it regularly, so this is perfect for them."