Posted to Mivtzoim on

New Mivtzoim Startup Crunches Data to Identify Jews

Mivtzoim meets big data: A Lubavitcher-owned company, Gorin Systems, has developed an innovative system to help Shluchim and others doing Mivtzoim identify who is likely Jewish based on their last name and historical immigration records.

“Excuse me sir, are you Jewish?” is possibly the most well-known line to every Lubavitcher chassid. With the Rebbe’s emphasis on Mivtzoim we are no stranger to speaking with strangers – but often much time and energy is spent just on finding Jews and not even interacting with them.

Mivtzoim.net, created by gorinsystems.com, is a custom database and mapping program, which helps users save their time and energy for communicating with Yidden as much as they can by knowing who is Jewish beforehand.

Mivtzoim.net is non-profit, with fees going exclusively towards the costs of building and maintaining the program.

“The Rebbe always stressed that we can’t leave even one Jew behind. Sometimes we wonder is this even within our capabilities? Only because the Rebbe gave us the Koichos did this feat became not only possible – but probable. We have to be fierce and relentless to win this golus war. Boruch Hashem the Mivtzoim.net program enables us to reach those Neshomois which would be otherwise forgotten,” the program’s creators said.

Mivtzoim.net will show a shliach all the Jewish contacts nearby – whether he is in Manhattan or in the middle of Kansas. Jewish business executives are also available. Maps include the name of the contact, his or her address and Jewish probability in a clear platform.

Jewish probability – what is this?

Of course there is no way of knowing without a doubt who is Jewish, but Mivtzoim.net can make a highly educated guess with its custom search algorithms.

For example: say we have a fellow whose name is Dov Brown, Mivtzoim.net will calculate his Jewish probability at 52% which means that on average out of 100 Dov Browns in America – 52 of them are halachically Jewish.

How can they know all this information?

When our great grandparents arrived at the US they had to fill out documents, these papers are called immigration records. There are millions of these records, most of which contain the religious status of their bearers. Mivtzoim.net analyzed over 87 million immigration records from New York Ports between 1820 and 1957 and then using the contact’s first and last name calculates Jewish probability based on the statistical analysis.

“We are holding at a very opportune time to get involved. With Purim and Pesach coming up we arrange bochurim to come and help us reach all the Jews which were perhaps never contacted. Especially in a year of Hakhel when the goal is to connect us all, there is no greater Achdus then coming together through Mitzvoim,” said the program’s creators.

To learn more visit www.Mivtzoim.net to sign up click https://mivtzoim.net/signup  or you can email mendel@mivtzoim.net for your free sample data. For questions and more call (248) 491-1315 x1 To donate click here https://mivtzoim.net/donate.

1 (2) 2 3

Related Articles

22 Comments

  • 1933-1945

    There are others who would also like to have software to help them locate where all the Jews are.

  • Distateful

    This tastes sour to me. Stalking ppl based on their names and immigration records??????

    Sounds like a breach of civil liberties. This is sounding more and more cult like.

    • Very nice

      Why is that stalking?
      it’s all public records…

      it’s there to help; instead of a shliach or bachur needing to sift through the white pages himself, they did it for you. The added bonus is the probability of each persons jewishness.

  • If I was on a list like that...

    It might be the last time the mivtzoyim route is committed to.

  • can't tell by last names

    Last names does not mean a Jew by any means.
    #3 This is not stalking. It is a business tactic.

    • Chana

      Its says in the article that they came up with a probability based on public records. Once you get results you can sort by Jewishness rating.

  • This is not ok.

    Good intentions but this is actually creepy and alarming. I’m really turned off by this idea.

  • Mivtzoim.net Owner

    At Mivtzoim.net we have been thinking about security from day 1.

    We know that if our data falls into the wrong hands it could have not good consequences Chas V’Shalom.

    Here are some measures we take to make sure this doesn’t happen:

    1) We don’t post any real data on our public website.

    You will notice that the public sample contains totally random data:

    https://mivtzoim.net/c/sample&key=123

    2) We screen all registrants before giving out data.

    When someone signs up we first call or email them to make sure they are a frum person honestly interested in doing Mivtzoim. We don’t give data out to non-frum users even if they will pay us lots of money.

    3) We use industry standard encryption

    You will notice on any data page the URL has “https” which means it uses a secure connection. We use 2048 bit Industry Standard SSL Certificate – the same level of security used by top companies.

    If anyone has any questions please email info@mivtzoim.net or call (888) 451-8880.

    Moshiach now!

  • Some facts

    This information is all on public record. Anyone can get it. They simply did the work of making an order out of it. In addition, Jewish organizations sell mailing lists every day (even Lubavitch organizations). Your name and address as well as a lot of information you’d rather kept private included. You’d be deluding yourself to think that this information is private. Just google it. You can buy this information, without offering any “special reason” for why you need it.

    In short, this system doesn’t enable someone with ill intent to do what they couldn’t do before. It’s also secured with an encrypted password, and asks for registration information which can be verified. This can all ensure that this information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

  • Mendy

    Any decent web developer can write a script in 10-20 minutes to scrape this information off the web and create a spreadsheet. Gorin Systems is providing a wonderful service and doing that work for you. But anyone who wanted to could also do this on their own, good people as well as bad people. It’s not a difficult task.

  • TMI

    it has their property value on it too ? That’s very shnorrer-ish and a turn-off to non-frum people

  • Ny ports?

    What about immigrants that came through Galveston, San Francisco etc.

  • Anonymous

    I know the programmer who made this possible. He worked hard and did a great job.

    Very innovative and very well done!

  • Chilul Hashem in the making

    The algorithm used to determine “jewishness” is comical at best!!

    It values Jewish sounding names over any factual data, testing dozens of names from our community (confirmed jewish) results in, I quote:
    “…1 out of 100 …*name*… in America on average are halachically Jewish. Since Jewish probability for ……. is below 5% he/she would not be included in our data”

    This is offensive, incompetent, inaccurate, irresponsible and exploitative.

    To whom it may concern, save yourself a PR nightmare and remove the “Jew-radar” feature ASAP.

  • Great innovation!

    Congratulations to the innovators of this program and the programmers who worked on it! This is a fantastic idea to bring Judaism to more Jewesh neshomos.
    Kol Hakovod on a Job well done.