All guides
64 guides.
Seven tracks.
Organised by activity, not by subject. Colour is the track and the three letters on every card are its code, listed below. Shape is the kind of page.
All within review date
Answer in the room
CNV · 11Talking to people who disagree with you, or who have not decided, or who are your friends.
How to argue well
Three different jobs, one method for each. What to concede, what to leave alone, and why the person arguing with you is almost never the person you are persuading.
9 minKey arguments
The lines that work, grouped by the situation you are actually in, with the reasoning under each so you can rebuild the argument when somebody pushes.
9 minWhen a friend asks
A sincere question from somebody who likes you is not an argument, and answering it as though it were is how you lose the most persuadable person you will ever speak to.
11 minTalking with a disaffected Zionist
The hardest conversation on this site is not with an opponent. It is with somebody who agrees with you and cannot bear what it now costs to say so.
8 minTalking with progressives
You will not move anybody by attacking the framework they think in. You move them by showing that their own framework, applied consistently, already contains the answer.
9 minTalking with conservatives
This tradition already holds national self-determination, the rule of law and rules applied evenly. Most of the job is translation, and the register matters more than the argument does.
9 minTalking with centrists
You are not fighting a rival framework here. You are fighting the wish not to think about it, and the way through is to be the calmest and most specific person in the room.
9 minArguing with sympathy
Somebody describing a death has not made an argument, and answering it with one is the most common way a well briefed advocate loses a room.
9 minTalking to your children
There is no argument to win here and nobody to persuade, and the reflexes that serve you everywhere else on this site are the ones to put down.
9 minThe four concessions
Four sentences that cover every argument on this site, each with the sentence that turns it. What to concede, when, and the one thing you never concede.
5 minProtesting for Palestine without antisemitism
Written for somebody who marches for Palestine and does not want to be antisemitic. What four chants mean, where they come from, and what to chant instead.
8 min
Answer online
SOC · 12Posting, handling a pile-on, and building an account that gets seen without making things worse.
Your first fifteen minutes
Whether to reply at all, the one thing worth doing tonight if you decide to, the rules that hold whatever you post, and where to go when you have longer.
6 minAnswering hostile replies
You posted something and the replies arrived. What to answer, what to leave alone, and how to come out of it without damage.
8 minSomebody you know posted it
The most common argument you will ever have online is with somebody you cannot block. What to reply in public, what to send in a message, and when to say nothing at all.
7 minMaking something capable of spreading
Virality cannot be manufactured. What can be controlled is whether a thing is built to travel, and almost everything that travels shares a small number of properties.
8 minHow a small account gets seen
Joint posts, replies that get you found, and what to post when forty people are reading. The mechanics nobody explains, and the part of them that will still be true next year.
8 minX, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, platform by platform
Four different mediums, four different audiences, and a specimen post for each showing what lands there and what dies. Plus what each one costs you personally on this subject.
7 minHow often to post, and for how long
A rate a working person can hold for a year, the ninety days where almost nothing happens, and how to stop without disappearing.
7 minUsing AI in your campaigning
What these tools genuinely do for one person working alone, how to check what comes back, and the hard line between getting help and faking support.
8 minWho has already done this
Ten accounts, what each one actually did, and which of the four things that grew them you can copy. With the counts, the dates, and what it cost each of them.
7 minWhen it comes at you
A pile-on, your details posted, contact with your employer, somebody at your door. What to do in the first hour, the first day and the first week.
9 minWhat is findable about you
A checklist you work through once, in about forty-five minutes, before you put your name to anything in public.
9 minReporting antisemitic content
Most reports go nowhere. What to capture first, which policy to report under, what each platform actually covers, and when to take it somewhere else.
9 min
Answer on campus
CAM · 7Speaking up where you study or work, and using the procedures you already have standing in.
Speaking up where you work
How to raise this with colleagues without it becoming the thing you are known for, choosing the venue, judging the room, and opening on their values rather than yours.
7 minWhen it happened weeks ago and you said nothing
You froze, the room moved on, and you have not. Whether you can still raise something weeks old, what is still worth writing down, and the sentence to open with.
8 minWhen you are the only Jew in the room
It comes up in a seminar, a staff meeting or over dinner, and you are the only Jewish person there. What to do in the next sixty seconds, and afterwards.
7 minA society that outlasts you
Running a campus society or a workplace network through a full year, and handing it on so it survives the person who built it.
9 minRaising it formally with your institution
How to make a complaint to a university, an employer or a union that has to be answered, rather than one that gets acknowledged and quietly buried.
8 minWhat antisemitism looks like now
The structure underneath it, where it currently comes from, why it gets denied so readily, and a test for naming it that keeps you credible.
8 minFounding a society where there is not one
How to start a Jewish society or an Israel society at an institution that has neither, from the first four names to the day you are registered.
8 min
Answer in the media
MED · 6Getting covered, correcting coverage, and handling a hostile interview.
Getting on the radio, and not wasting it
How to get past the screener, what to say in your first fifteen seconds, and how to hold one point through ninety seconds of live air.
8 minWriting a letter that gets printed
How to write a letter to a newspaper that actually runs, why speed beats quality, and what to do when it is not printed, which is most of the time.
8 minWhen coverage gets it wrong
How to tell a correctable factual error apart from a framing you object to, how to ask an outlet to fix the first, and when to leave it alone.
9 minWriting and placing an opinion piece
How comment desks actually decide, why the only question that matters is why you and why now, and how to pitch a signed article when nobody has heard of you.
8 minWriting a press release, before and after
The three things a journalist needs, the two releases that deliver them, and what the named contact says when somebody rings back.
9 minSpeaking on television
How to find out what you have actually been booked into, what the camera does that has nothing to do with your words, and what to settle before you say yes.
8 min
Answer where it is decided
POL · 6MPs, councillors and formal bodies, where a motion may be on the table and every fact you cite will be checked.
When a BDS motion lands in a body you belong to
What to do procedurally when a boycott motion appears at your union branch, student union, council or association, from finding out early to what happens after the vote.
8 minMeeting your representative face to face
How to get the meeting, what to prepare, how to use twenty minutes that will start late, and the follow-up that decides whether any of it mattered.
7 minUsing the IHRA working definition
What the IHRA working definition of antisemitism actually is, what it cannot do for you, and how to raise it in a room without being corrected in public.
8 minWriting to your representative so it counts
How correspondence is really handled, why a template gets counted once, and the follow-up letter that almost nobody sends.
8 minThe 7 October attacks: what you can state, and what to leave alone
A sourced reference on the 7 October 2023 attacks, and a plain list of the widely repeated claims that did not hold up.
9 minThe Hamas charter: quoting it accurately
What the 1988 Covenant says, article by article, what the 2017 document did and did not change, and how to quote either without being caught out.
9 min
Organise the action
EVT · 10Planning, running and following up on demonstrations, vigils and public events.
What is this action actually for?
Name the eleven people you are trying to move and the verb you want out of them. Includes the purpose most Jewish community events actually have and nobody writes down.
4 minHow to find out the law where you are
A method rather than a summary. What to look for, who to ask, and which questions matter, wherever in the world you are organising.
7 minChoosing the format, the place and the time
A vigil, a rally, a march and a stall do different jobs and carry different risk. Then the calendar, which on this subject rules out more dates than the diary does.
7 minRisk and safety planning before you announce anything
Ninety minutes with a sheet of paper, before the date is public, that decides what happens on the day. The grid is printed here twice, filled in and blank.
8 minRunning the day, from the six roles to a hostile encounter
The roles a public event needs, why whoever leads it must not also be speaking, the procedure for the moment somebody starts filming faces, and why disengaging is almost always right.
10 minWhat the venue asks for before it says yes
The insurance certificate, their risk assessment form, the deposit and whose name is on the booking. Then the bank account, and the permit a collecting bucket needs.
Local11 minPlacards, banners and chants that work
Most campaign materials fail on legibility rather than on message. What is readable at distance, what photographs well, and how a chant actually gets learned.
9 minCapturing evidence properly
A nine-step procedure for recording an incident so it still works in six months, a six-word short form for the street, and what to do when it happens on Shabbat.
7 minThe debrief, and what to do next
Six fixed questions, an hour, four days later. Three of them are the ones only a Jewish community event has to ask, and they are the three nobody asks.
5 minSpeaking out loud to a room
How long to speak at a rally, a vigil or a panel, what to write out word for word, and what to do when a hostile question comes from the floor.
8 min
Organise the group
COM · 12Starting one from nothing, running a meeting, dividing the roles, finding the money and keeping people going.
Money, for a group with no money
What a first year actually costs, itemised and dated. Then how to ask people for it, what a treasurer does, and what accepting somebody else's logo costs you.
Local8 minStarting a group from nothing
Getting from one person who cares to a group that still exists in a year. Three people, one line saying what it is for, and a list of names that has to be looked after.
7 minRunning a meeting when this is the subject
The ordinary chairing that earns its place, then the moments an agenda cannot reach: the indefensible thing said aloud, a row about Israeli politics, and the room looking at one person.
7 minThe list of people, and what you owe them
Where the membership list lives, who can see it, what you tell people when you take their details, and what to do on the day it goes wrong.
8 minRunning a vigil
A vigil is not a demonstration and it fails when it is run like one. Timing against the Jewish calendar, whether there is a minyan, how names are read, and what to do when somebody starts a chant.
7 minPostering
Where you can put one up and how to find out, what survives a wet Tuesday, why you go in pairs, and what to do when you find yours defaced or somebody else's next to it.
7 minThe group chat
Where your organising actually happens. What belongs in it, what an admin owes people, why one chat becomes four, and the fact that everything in it gets screenshotted eventually.
6 minWorking with other organisations
Coalition building. Who actually decides, what to ask for, what to offer, and what to do when a partner says something from a platform you cannot stand behind.
7 minAfter you report it
What the reference number is for, who decides how your report is classified, how to get that corrected, and what to do when the file closes and nothing has happened.
7 minThe member everybody works around
The person who has been there since the first meeting, does more than anybody, and frightens newcomers. Four problems that look like one, and five moves in order of cost.
8 minBringing in people who are not convinced
Why almost every group stops growing at about three months, and the method that gets past it: one person, asking one person, for one thing, on one date.
8 minWhen you want to stop running it
A student society has a clock because people graduate. A community group has none. Deciding to stop, saying it, finding a successor, and closing properly if there is none.
8 min