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Jewlicious is a blog and nonprofit organization, focused on presenting Judaism, Jewish culture, and Israeli politics for a contemporary American audience. The blog was founded in 2004 by David Abitbol and Layla Millman and has featured posts from a variety of contributors. Jewlicious has since expanded, organizing a variety of projects and events, most notably the Jewlicious Festival, a bi-annual cultural and music festival.
Despite an irreverent aesthetic, the Jewlicious blog often covers serious topics related to Jewish culture and tradition, the The Holocaust, and Israeli politics. The blog has over a dozen regular contributors based in Europe, Israel, and the United States. At its peak, the blog averaged 8,000 to 10,000 hits a day; Abitbol speculated in May 2006 that Jewlicious was the most globally popular blog on Jewish and Israeli topics, not counting Little Green Footballs. The site saw a particular spike in traffic from Lebanon during the 2006 Lebanon War. In August 2008, Abitbol was a panelist at the inaugural JBlogging Conference in Jerusalem.
Expanding in popularity, Abitbol and Jewlicious quickly began to expand to other projects. Jewlicious ran an internet radio station, which played artists like Israeli rapper Subliminal, and an online store at shmatas.com, which sold shirts with slogans like "I love Hashem" and "Challah Takbir". They partnered with Birthright Israel to organize Birthright trips for Jewlicious readers, which were documented on the blog. Abitbol and Millman organized the biannual Florida-based conference series "Jewlicious on the Beach", one of which featured a performance by Matisyahu and a lecture by Eytan Schwartz. They have co-sponsored parties in Jerusalem, at New York's Sephardic Music Festival, and at a Tu B'Av event in Los Angeles. According to Abitbol, Jewlicious has been approached by Aish HaTorah, Nefesh B'Nefesh, and the New Israel Fund for partnerships.
In 2010, Jewlicious was one of several Jewish websites to promote the Jewish Federations of North America's "What's your #ish?" campaign, alongside Heeb magazine, Jewcy, and JDate.
The eighth annual Jewlicious Festival in 2012 was held aboard the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach. The event included meditation and Jewish yoga, talks on philosophy, politics, and the Occupy movement, and various Shabbat services, and guests included comedians Todd Barry and Moshe Kasher, actress Mayim Bialik, and musical groups The Aggrolites, and Moshav.
The 2010 Jewlicious Festival was notably picketed by members of the Westboro Baptist Church. The year before, Megan Phelps-Roper, granddaughter of church founder Fred Phelps, had found Abitbol's name in a Jewish Telegraphic Agency article and messaged him on Twitter telling him to "repent". This led to a dialogue between the two, which played a role in Phelps-Roper ultimately breaking away from Westboro Baptist and becoming a vocal critic of the church. In 2013, Abitbol invited Phelps-Roper and her younger sister Grace to speak at that year's Jewlicious Festival about their ideological journey. In 2017, Megan gave a lecture in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, entitled "Overcoming Hatred", which was co-sponsored by Jewlicious and The Times of Israel.
As part of a 2012 fundraiser, Jewlicious.com offered several prizes to donors, among them a personal dinner date with Jewlicious bloggers Jessica Snapper and Michelle Esther Appelbaum, who would be flown out to meet the winner. Several Twitter users, including journalist Allison Good, accused the prize of having sexist undertones, with Good directly tweeting Abitbol that he was "actually pimping out his bloggers." In response to the controversy, Abitbol argued that both women were actively involved in coming up with the campaign. Appelbaum told Haaretz that the prize would be "more of a joke than anything else. If someone were to donate this amount for a "date," there would certainly be a background check, and never would I go to a private place with any stranger." She further argued that "what is really gross and offensive is the implication that Jessica and I are likened prostitutes hired by a character in Mad Men to help seal a deal...This is despite the fact that the photos used were not at all provocative and both of us are college educated women possessed of, or seeking advanced degrees."
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