I Need Some Time Off. I Want to Do New Things. I Want to Sleep More Hours

This item was posted on JCN18.com in 1998. I'm re-posting it because we're getting old and someone should keep track of what happened when. Special thanks to Larry Yudelson, without whom this archival material would have gone back into the ether.

Interview with JCN's retiring Senior Editor Yori Yanover.

by Yori Yanover

We're sitting in Mr. Yanover's downtown office, separated by a lavish screen from the bedroom he shares with his wife of 21 years. Thankfully he and I encompass only one body, so the area is sufficiently spacious (can you say "sufficiently spacious" three times in a row really quickly?).

Yanover, a former journalist for US Hebrew rag Israel Shelanu and the US supplement of Yedioth Aharonoth, is surrounded today by a great deal of stuff he has acquired over the Internet, using his Visa card. He sports a Quantex with a 300 MH processor, 128 Megabyte Ram, 6 gigabyte hard-drive memory and 17 inch screen. He is very proud of these. He also owns a Umax scanner, Apple LaserWriter printer, a phone and an answering machine.

He also says he owns several books, but hasn't seen them recently. Yanover has been online since around October of 1994, when he was first reprimanded for posting inappropriate messages on the Compuserve Jewish message board. His claim that he merely mixed his messages to the sex forum with those for the Jewish discussion only made matters worse.

Getting hired as an editor for a new Jewish online venture was only a matter of time at that point.

Q: Why are you leaving JCN?

Yanover: Right to the point, eh? No chit-chat, the facts, Ma'am, only the --

Q: Come on, already…

Yanover: Look, I've been here since the beginning of time. I want to get into new things. I want to be off-line for a while. You have a problem with that?

Q: Well, since you're one of the only Webzine editors who actually gets paid for what he does...

Yanover: This is true, and I'm thankful for that. In fact, this may be a good spot to thank Niv Bleich, President of Advanced Standard, our parent company, for launching and running this great service.

Q: Any other thank-you notes before we continue?

Yanover: Literally dozens of people took part in creating this great tool of Jewish intercourse (are we getting an R rating for this?). I'll mention those who really imbued the site with their souls.

Adi Ben Jakob, our former technical director, who hated my essays in Yedioth so much, he decided he had to have me here, if only to raise the temperature; Yoram Ezra, who gave the zine its first graphic personality; Max Levitte, who created the Web guide and was our first news editor; Larry Yudelson, who really shaped the attitudes and ambition of JCN; Michal Mart, who yanked the site into the next generation of Internet interactivity; Tzvee Zahavy, who lent us a quality of distinction.

And, like I said, literally dozens of others whose lives crossed JCN's at one point or another and helped make it a truly fun spot.

Q: Is there JCN after Yori Yanover?

Yanover: Are you kidding? In many ways the game is just now starting. I believe the new editor, Eve Yudelson, is just the person to take JCN into the next Century, so to speak. She's young, she's totally unpredictable, and I'm looking forward to enjoying the fruits of her labor. I'm told the News department will undergo a quantum change, which I'll be following eagerly.

But first I'm getting off line for a few weeks. I may read a book.

Q: Who's your favorite author?

Yanover: Patricia Anthony, absolutely the best thing that's happened to sci-fi in ages.

Q: Why are you leaving JCN?

Yanover: I want to write a book. Maybe a sequel to my book on Lubavitch.

Q: Seriously, though, why are you leaving JCN?

Yanover: I need some time off. I want to do new things. I want to sleep more hours.

Q: What's your favorite corner on JCN?

Yanover: I love them all equally.

Q: What did you hate most on JCN?

Yanover: Deleting forum messages.

Yori Yanover is JCN's former senior editor.