Search results for: Databases

When I, as a high school librarian, was introduced to the Internet in the early 1990s, it was in its infancy. However, I quickly understood the value for her students of having access to an ever-increasing collection of free Jewish resources. I began keeping a list of these resources, annotating them and then categorizing them. The result was the first edition of my book, The Jewish Guide to the Internet, published by Jason Aronson.

Here at the Forward, we had a big dream. What if we could serve as a clearinghouse for basic information about synagogue life across this country, from older, established institutions to newer independent minyanim and spiritual communities? What if we could create a crowd-sourced compilation of data that will serve as a resource to readers nationwide and offer synagogues of all shapes, sizes and denominations a chance to share their story? And so, our ‘synagogue guide’ was born.

A growing base of knowledge is developing for Jewish education practitioners to turn to for insights and best practices, so they engage learners in the most effective ways possible. This development is critical for the field of Jewish education. Just as other fields, such as medicine and law, have research that informs and improves practice, CASJE (Consortium for Applied Studies in Jewish Education)—a community of researchers, practitioners, and philanthropic leaders—is committed to sharing knowledge to improve Jewish education.

In a first-ever hackathon for Haredi engineers and programmers, more than 200 men and women brainstormed with mentors from the Israeli tech industry for 18 hours last week — to come up with ways to inject artificial intelligence and big data sciences into the study of ancient Jewish texts. Held at the Facebook Israel headquarters in Tel Aviv, the event was organized by KamaTech, a startup accelerator for ultra-Orthodox entrepreneurs, together with Sefaria, a website for Jewish texts and translations, which allowed the developers to use its open platform to develop software programs.