Aaron Bisman

Bisman founded JDub Records in 2002 with his friend Ben Hesse, a fellow NYU student.^[2] The organization set out to build Jewish community through music, a goal The Forward characterized as radical relative to the established principles of organized Jewish life.^[1] Bisman secured early backing from the Joshua Venture Group, whose second cohort provided 60,000ドル over two years along with a healthcare stipend and consulting support, and subsequently from the incubator Bikkurim, the Natan Fund and UJA-Federation.^{[1] [6]} He has said he paid himself 20,000ドル a year in JDub's early period.^[6]

JDub's first commercial success was Matisyahu, whose 2004 debut album brought the label into the Jewish communal mainstream and, in The Forward's assessment, placed visibly observant Jews in the wider pop-culture spotlight.^[2] Matisyahu left for new management in 2006, telling Bisman that the label might lack the experience to handle his career; observers expected the departure to cripple JDub.^[1] Instead Bisman expanded the roster to artists including Balkan Beat Box, the klezmer-punk band Golem, the Yiddish rapper Socalled, the Sephardic group DeLeon and the Israeli hip-hop acts Sagol 59 and Axum, while running the Jewltide Hanukkah concert series.^{[1] [2]} His approach relied on cultivating journalists, bloggers and publicists to build audiences for artists working in commercially marginal genres.^[1] Writing in November 2006, The Forward named him to its annual Forward 50, describing him as having secured backing for unconventional ideas from the more conservative institutions of the organized Jewish community.^[3]

In 2005 Bisman co-founded the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, a collaboration between JDub, Avodah Arts and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture that provided twelve New York–based visual, musical and performing artists with funding, professional development and mentorship over two years. He persuaded UJA-Federation to commit 1ドル million to the program, at the time the largest grant the organization had made to individual artists.^[1] The New York fellowship closed in 2013 after UJA-Federation declined to renew its grant.^[7] In 2009 JDub acquired the Jewish culture website Jewcy for a nominal fee and entered an arrangement with the publisher Nextbook, producer of Tablet , under which JDub effectively served as its in-house marketing and public relations department in exchange for cash and office space.^[2]

JDub announced in July 2011 that it would close, citing financial pressure. Bisman told The Forward at the organization's offices, three days after laying off its nine-person staff, that none of the remaining options would have left JDub recognizable as itself.^[2] He described a funding environment in which individual grants of 25,000ドル to 40,000ドル could not sustain a budget that had reached roughly 1ドル.1 million, and in which donors were unwilling to underwrite general operating costs.^{[2] [6]} He had drawn up twelve alternative business plans before the board decided to wind the organization down.^[2] JDub produced 36 albums over its nine years.^[2]

The closure prompted debate within Jewish philanthropy about the lack of second-stage funding for maturing nonprofits, with JDub cited as an organization that had followed accepted practice — deriving roughly half its revenue from earned income — and failed anyway.^{[2] [6]} Lisa Lepson, executive director of the Joshua Venture Group, said JDub's financial failure did not diminish Bisman's standing, calling him an influential voice for young people in the Jewish community.^[6] The historian Jonathan Sarna read the closure as evidence of a broader generational shift away from religious engagement.^[2]

Bisman became director of brand, sales and marketing at Jazz at Lincoln Center.^[8] In 2019 he told Inside Philanthropy that the funding conditions that closed JDub had not improved and that Jewish culture remained a low priority for funders.^[8]

Bisman joined Sesame Workshop in 2020 as vice president for audience development, and was later promoted to senior vice president of marketing.^{[4] [5]} He oversees the Sesame Street social media accounts, which are voiced in character and used to carry public-health and educational messaging.^[4] Discussing the accounts with The New York Times in 2021, he described matching messages to character: Big Bird announced his COVID-19 vaccination — drawing a public rebuke from Senator Ted Cruz — because the character combines enthusiasm with some anxiety, while Bert, as an older character, posted about voting in the 2020 election.^[4] Bisman has said that reaching children requires engaging the adults around them, and that the research and curriculum standards applied to the television program are also applied to material aimed at adults.^{[5] [9]}