News Editor

Rockville's Meredith Jacobs says her children made her a convert to Shabbat observance.

Sofie, now 8, and Jules, two years younger, would come home from preschool clamoring for the home rituals they had learned.

" 'Mommy, it's Friday, we have to have Shabbat,' " Jacobs recalls them saying, before she got in the habit of lighting candles and even baking her own challah.

Through a recently launched Web site ‹ www.modernjewishmom.com ‹ Jacobs hopes to share her renewed passion for Jewish life. With a master's degree in marketing, she brings a business savvy plus her recent job as director of media relations for the District-based International Franchise Association.

This mother of two also is finalizing a publishing contract for a book with the working title Paper Napkins and Shabbos Candles: A Modern Jewish Mom's Guide to Shabbat, with an anticipated release date next year.

A program at the Conservative B'nai Tzedek Congregation in Potomac, where she serves on the board, catalyzed her online project.

Last December, Jacobs worked with Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt on a program, "Make Fridays Shabbat," to encourage home rituals to mark the Sabbath.

She recalls her initial dismissal of the idea of holding dinner table discussions of the parsha, or Torah portion of the week ‹ until she heard a success story. A co-congregant's son had written a college paper on how such discussions had helped him to think philosophically.

Jacobs tried the practice on for size and found it fostered high-level conversations with her children.

"It's an incredible parenting tool," she says, adding, "It's a way to talk about ethics, morals and ideas, without giving kids a lecture."

So her Web site features discussion questions on the parsha of the week, which Jacobs generates herself. Other site components include recipes, Shabbat blessings, b'nai mitzvah ideas, crafts projects and humorous advice from both Jacobs and a "Modern Jewish Grandma," her own mother, Ellen Levin of Dresher, Pa..

Jacobs, who updates the site herself, is partnering with Webmaster Amy Kramer of Clever Pup Web, a soon-to-be-Jewish mom based in Los Angeles, and graphic designer Jaclyn Ross, of Baltimore.

Jacobs reports some 76,000 hits on her Web site since its debut on April 28, which she's traced to such far-flung places as Norway, Australia, Cuba and Romania.

"It uses modern technology to make available to Jewish families ideas that will be helpful to them in terms of promoting Jewish lifestyle, taking our tradition and making it accessible," says Weinblatt.

Jacobs says she uses a direct, breezy tone on the Web site "as if speaking to friends."

Meanwhile, she holds out the goal of helping other moms make "Jewish memories" for the next generation.

"I really believe you have to give your children ownership of Shabbat and other traditions you celebrate in the home," Jacobs says. "You may have beautiful silver candlesticks, but if your child sees you using the clay candlesticks they made, then they'll see their role in the tradition."