Section archive - Learning Resources

As a Jewish innovation enthusiast, and as a software engineer, it was with great excitement and surprise that I learned of the Jim Joseph Foundation awarding a $250,000 grant in support of the Sefaria project. Sefaria describes itself as “a living library of Jewish Texts and their interconnections, in Hebrew and in translation.” It offers a beautiful interface to open source Jewish texts, accompanied by parallel crowdsourced translations, and includes some works translated into English for the very first time.

The Shir-Ad Association is a voluntary non-profit organization whose primary goal is the preserving and promoting social-cultural and educational Zionist values from the founding generation to the 1980s and instilling these values to younger generations, before they disappear from Israeli culture and become a thing of the past. All this, in order to strengthen young Israelis' bond with their country and raise their awareness to the importance of the role they should play in designing the future of Israel and Israeli society. It follows the footsteps of The Association for Hebrew Song Legacy, founded by composer and Israel Prize winner Nahum Hayman. Shir Ad runs a Youtube Channel and a website for the benefit of the public which serve as sources of information and collections of classical Israeli folk music, to promote Hebrew songs as well as their values, their legacy and the history reflected in them.

February 1, 2014 will mark the beginning of the sixth annual Jewish Disability Awareness Month. JDAM is designed to be a unified initiative to raise disability awareness and support efforts to foster inclusion in Jewish communities worldwide. I will share a daily blog post throughout the month of February to help bring awareness to the significant value of including Jews with disabilities in all aspects of Jewish life. I may write a “how-to” or share a success story, I will probably discuss an experience or two as they unfold, and I might reflect on a struggle or a goal not yet met. I may even introduce a guest post or two. And I would love for you to join me.

When Sara Losch decided to add a computer-learning program to her Hebrew school’s curriculum, she thought it would give her students a dose of positive reinforcement. Little did she realize that the program would also provide an emotional boost to the staff. The program, Mitkadem Digital, is an online version of the Union of Reform Judaism’s Mitkadem textbooks, which are used in a little more than a third of the movement’s 870 member congregations, said Michael Goldberg, editor in chief at URJ Books and Music.