The Jewish Free-Culture Society is comprised of individuals contributing to open-source projects in Judaism. As determined by our accreditation review board, membership is open to all individual contributors to open-source Jewish initiatives donating $18 or more USD, and to all initiatives, institutions, or other organizations employing open-source or Open Content licensing. Voting is open to all individual members in good standing. Election to the Board of Directors is contingent on approval from our Board Advisors and a declaration of intent by Tu biShvat of that year. Voting for our annual awards and for our Board of Directors is held every year on the Rosh Ḥodesh Nissan. To become a member, please donate here.
Board of Directors
The positions on the board of directors are:
- Chair — chief spokesperson, responsible for executing the society’s mission
- Treasurer — responsible for keeping the finances and formal obligations of the non-profit transparent and fulfilled
- Archivist — site administrator and legal representative of the society on all contracts receiving copyrighted work
The board of directors are paid in sums equal to 20% of the income of the society (up to $18,000) for their annual work.
Currently, the board of directors is staffed by Aharon Varady (Chair) and Marc Stober (Treasurer). The Archivist position is open. Please contact us if your would like to be considered for this position.
Advisory Committee
Every non-profit relies upon interested and expert advisors to review the organization’s plans, strategies, staff (hiring and dismissal), ensuring that decisions are made in accord the organizational mission. If you agree with the mission outlined above, and feel you have expertise that will help us succeed, we invite you to join our board as an advisor. Advisors are responsible for preserving the mission from strategic decisions and staff that might lead it away from this mission. As an advisor, you would participate in regular meetings with this responsibility in mind. Directors may be removed from their position upon a 2/3rds majority vote by the board of advisors and directors. In such a case, an intermediate advisor will be voted by majority of the board of advisors and directors to replace the descending board member until a new board member is elected. The experts on the board of advisors are:
- librarian (open)
- lawyer/legal scholar (open)
- open-source programmer (open)
- UI/UX designer (open)
- web-to-print or on-demand publisher (open)
- master book artist, crafter (open)
- rabbi or otherwise degreed Jewish educator (Aharon Varady)
- open-source project manager (open)
Please contact us if your would like to apply for any of the open positions.
Recognition Awards Committee
The Awards Committee votes on all of those nominated for the annual Jewish Free Culture Recognition Awards (see “projects“). Any member of the Jewish free-culture society in good standing is eligible to vote on the Awards Committee. Any members of the Awards Committee may question the eligibility of an individual or community project nominated for an award based solely on whether the nominee has contributed to Open-source Judaism and the Free Culture Movement according to the standard definition of Open-source as maintained by the Open Source Initiative, the definition of Open as maintained by the Open Knowledge Foundation, and the definition of Free Cultural Works as maintained by the Free-Culture Foundation. (For challenged nominees, final determination of nominee eligibility strictly according to these definitions is made by the Board of Advisors in a majority vote.)