Thursday, September 13, 2012

Anonymous No Longer

When I started doing this blog, it seemed natural to be anonymous.  I am not interested in self-promotion.  I also expected others would join me in writing the blog.  That didn't happen.

Over the last few months, I have been weighing the the advantages, disadvantages and reasons for anonymity for myself.  In the end, I have decided to come out.  Here's why:

In the age of the internet, there is no more privacy.   Once you have appeared on the Daily Show, been written about in the Wall Street Journal, The Jewish Week, Tablet Magazine and The Wifely Person Speaks, and trashed on the Mondoweis blog and in The Nation, can you still think you are anonymous?  Before last year it would have been very hard to find anything about me if you googled my name.  Now, fuggedaboutit.

I am proud of what I have done.  There is no reason to hide my name.

On Twitter, I am "Stop BDS."  I began to feel that it would be more friendly to have my name and picture. 

Finally, I believe using my name makes me a more effective advocate.  So here I am:

Barbara Simon Mazor, wife, mother, engineer and activist.