collive.com
COLlive.com is an independent news and community website focused on Crown Heights and the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch community.
What is COLlive.com?
COLlive.com began in 2008 as an independent Orthodox Jewish news outlet.
Its main job is simple: keep Chabad communities connected through news and useful local information.
The site reports on events in Brooklyn, Israel, the United States, and Chabad communities around the world.
This makes the site more focused than a normal Jewish news website.
It speaks mainly to people who want to know what is happening inside Chabad-Lubavitch communities.
The site describes itself as a leading source for news about the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch community.
What can you find on COLlive.com?
The site mixes normal news with community information.
Readers can find original reports, opinion pieces, photo galleries, videos, lectures, classes, and live broadcasts.
The homepage also carries community announcements and stories from Crown Heights and other Chabad communities.
This mix is important because COLlive is not only trying to tell readers what happened.
It also works like a digital community board.
For example, the site has carried simcha announcements, classified listings, lost-and-found notices, and information about businesses.
A person may visit for a major story and then check an engagement announcement or a local notice.
That gives people more reasons to return each day.
Who is COLlive.com made for?
The main audience is the Chabad-Lubavitch community.
The publisher has described the goal as making COLlive a home page for many kinds of Lubavitch readers, including men, women, younger readers, older readers, community leaders, and newcomers.
That broad community focus helps explain the site's content choices.
A small event in Crown Heights may matter greatly to its readers even when a large national news company would never report it.
The same idea applies to Chabad schools, rabbis, shluchim, community projects, weddings, and local businesses.
COLlive fills that gap.
Who runs COLlive.com?
Mica Soffer is identified by COLlive as its publisher and editor.
In a 2019 letter, Soffer said the site's mission was to give the global Chabad community news and information from places ranging from Crown Heights to Jerusalem and Moscow.
That letter also showed something important about COLlive's editorial position.
The publication sees itself as independent, but it also works inside a religious community with its own values and leadership.
COLlive said in 2019 that it was working with rabbis to develop clearer editorial policies and guidance.
That relationship helps explain why the site can feel different from a standard commercial news publication.
Why is Crown Heights so important to COLlive.com?
Crown Heights is at the center of much of the site's identity.
The Brooklyn neighborhood is a major center of Chabad-Lubavitch life.
COLlive therefore covers its people, institutions, events, shops, restaurants, and daily community activity in detail.
The site has even expanded into local business information.
In 2018, COLlive Media Group launched Gegent as a directory designed to connect people with Crown Heights businesses and services.
COLlive's current pages still feature material connected with Gegent and community businesses.
This shows how the website has grown beyond a basic news feed.
It has become part news publication, part notice board, and part local information service.
How important has COLlive become in its community?
COLlive has received public recognition for its role in Brooklyn.
For its tenth anniversary in 2018, a street concert and festival in Crown Heights drew about 5,000 people, according to the site's history.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams also proclaimed October 7, 2018, as “COLlive Day” in Brooklyn.
New York City Council Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo presented recognition connected with the site's work in the community.
Those events show that COLlive developed a role beyond publishing articles online.
It became a recognizable community institution.
What makes COLlive.com different from a regular news site?
The biggest difference is how closely news and community life are joined together.
A large news company normally separates reporting, classifieds, personal announcements, local directories, and community notices.
COLlive puts many of these things in one place.
That model works because its audience shares a strong community connection.
Readers are not only looking for world events.
They may also want to know about a local event, a new business, a community celebration, or news about someone they know.
That makes COLlive.com best understood as a digital meeting point for Chabad-Lubavitch life, with Crown Heights at its center and a worldwide community around it.