“Actress and comedian Michaela Watkins is in Israel as part of a Jewish women influencers trip sponsored by the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project.” – Times of Israel
JTA and the Times of Israel report that 30 top ‘social media savvy’ women, including a former Saturday Night Live member, are visiting Israel on a a free trip to Israel allegedly “focused on Jewish values” that partners with 200 other Jewish outreach organizations and Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.
Social-media savvy women bloggers visit Israel, joined by former ‘SNL’ cast member
By JTA
A former cast member of “Saturday Night Live” will join 30 top female bloggers on a visit to Israel.
Michaela Watkins, who at 47 was the oldest cast member of SNL when she started in 2008, now stars on the Hulu series “Casual.”
[JTA seems uncertain of her age and has now replaced this article with a modified version that calls her 45 today.]
The online following of the Jewish women who arrived in Israel on Monday as part of the Media Magnets mission of the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project is more than 10 million people.
The women will travel to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Safed, and the Dead Sea, and visit such places as Israel’s first fashion house; attend a cocktail party with WMN – a coworking space and ecosystem for women-led ventures in Tel Aviv; and participate in marking Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, as well as meet with Israeli media professionals, artists, entrepreneurs, and government officials, designed to spark creative joint endeavors.
Among the other participants are Erica Ehm, founder of Yummy Mummy Club, Canada’s leading parenting site; Cailli and Sam Beckerman, twin fashion bloggers who are brand ambassadors for Chanel; Ilana Wiles, the creator of the parenting blog Mommy Shorts; Sarah Maizes, vice president of Children’s Entertainment at The Jim Henson Company; Amber Katz, founder of rouge18.com, a pop culture-infused beauty blog; and Amy Kritzer founder of the modern Jewish cooking blog ”What Jew Wanna Eat” and author of the cookbook “Sweet Noshings.”
Hulu’s Michaela Watkins coming to ‘experience Israel as an adult’
By Jessica Steinberg, Times of Israel
Known as the (then) oldest regular cast member ever hired by “Saturday Night Live,” actress and comedian Michaela Watkins will visit Israel this week as part of Media Magnets, a mission of 30 women known for their online engagement in social media.
Watkins, who was 37 when she joined “SNL,” currently stars on the Hulu show “Casual” as Valerie Cole, a newly divorced therapist who is just re-entering the world of dating, and recently starred alongside Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler in “The House.”
The Jewish actress, now 46, said she felt the urge to come to Israel after scrolling through her friend’s Instagram page. She told her manager she wanted to go to Israel and “eat that hummus.”
Watkins, along with 29 fellow female influencers, will be doing just that, while visiting Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Safed and Ein Gedi throughout the eight-day trip.
Watkins said in a statement that she is “always excited and interested in doing things with a group of women that I don’t know and I really feel that for where I am today I need to go to Israel and experience Israel as an adult and just observe and listen and let that be part of my becoming.”
The trip is meant to introduce the women to various aspects of Israel, as well as their Israeli counterparts. This particular group has a combined following of more than ten million people who read their blogs, watch their videos and follow their Instagram feeds.
The media trip is organized by the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project. Nicknamed Birthright for Moms, it’s a mostly free trip to Israel focused on Jewish values that partners with 200 other Jewish outreach centers and organizations, ranging from Federation to Aish HaTorah and Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.
[It does not appear that the group will visit any Israeli prisons where thousands of Palestinian political prisoners are incarcerated, “unrecognized villages” in Israel slated for demolition, or that they will meet with any of the groups exposing Israeli oppression of Palestinians.]
