#GiladShalit

My morning routine is about the same every weekday: Drag my lazy butt out of bed. Feed the dog. Get to the bus stop. Read Twitter.

This morning, after being saddened by the death of the esteemed Senator Ted Kennedy, I noticed that Gilad Shalit had made it to number 3 in the top Twitter trends. (You can always check them out at http://search.twitter.com/)

I had read a few places that there was a campaign to tweet today for Shalit’s 23rd birthday, to raise awareness about him. Redeeming Jewish captives (pidyon shvuyim) is an incredibly important mitzvah in Judaism, but Jews make up a such a small percentage of the population–world and social media. I really wasn’t expecting to see Shalit break the top ten, particulary on a day with other big news.

So while it’s laudable that the Jewish community can mobilize social media on a massive level for an important cause, I hope soon we won’t have to tweet to release Shalit.