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Researching Orthodox Judaism Online PERSPECTIVES ON TECHNOLOGY of raw material in these journals. RESEARCHING ORTHODOX Also within Israel, the organization Ne’emanei Torah vaAvodah aims to JUDAISM ONLINE preserve “the original values of Heidi Lerner traditional Zionism” and offers provides free, full-text access to these current and back issues of its or people interested in and other German Jewish periodicals influential journal Deot online researching the many strains (www.compactmemory.de). (www.toravoda.org.il/deot.html). Fof Orthodox Judaism in all The Arutz Sheva Israel National their diversity, there is a variety of HebrewBooks.org, a nonprofit News site (www.israelnational primary and secondary sources to organization founded “to news.com) emanates from the consult online. Books and journals preserve old American Hebrew religious Zionist community and are available digitally. Websites books that are out of print offers news and analysis in several emanating from institutions, and/or circulation,” has mounted formats (text, visual, and audio) and organizations, and individuals on the Web approximately one also shiurim from leading rabbis in document highly distinctive hundred American Orthodox English and Hebrew. ideological and political Jewish periodicals online that are perspectives. There is increasing use out of print or circulation There are a number of radio of the Internet by Orthodox and (www.hebrewbooks.org). Reflecting stations broadcasting on the Haredi Jews for multiple religious, communal, personal, and THERE IS INCREASING USE OF THE INTERNET BY ORTHODOX educational purposes, despite some well-publicized opposition among AND HAREDI JEWS FOR MULTIPLE RELIGIOUS, COMMUNAL, the Haredim. Religious Jewish residents of the West Bank maintain PERSONAL, AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES, DESPITE SOME websites that provide historical, theological, and institutional WELL-PUBLICIZED OPPOSITION AMONG THE HAREDIM. information. The following and by no means exhaustive list includes a recent trend in modern American Internet that are directed to some of the Web-based resources Orthodox thought, Yeshivat Orthodox audiences. Kol Hai is a and tools that reflect the wide range Chovevei Torah issues Meorot: A licensed Haredi radio station in of Orthodox thought, activity, and Forum of Modern Orthodox Israel (www.93fm.co.il). Other practices. Discourse online (www.yctorah.org/ programs on the Internet aimed at content/view/331/78). the Orthodox communities are Kol Orthodox Judaism and the Media ha-Neshama, Kol ha-Emet, and For approximately two hundred Among the electronically available Radio Breslev. years a wide range of journals newspapers and journals that serve devoted to Talmudic commentary, the Orthodox and Haredi Organizational Websites Jewish law, homiletics, and biblical communities in Israel, the daily ha- The Union of Orthodox Jewish exegesis have been published in Tsofeh (www.hazofe.co.il) is Congregations of America Europe, the Americas, and Israel. affiliated with the National (www.ou.org), often known as the By the middle of the nineteenth Religious Party. The weeklies OU, is one of the largest Jewish century, an Orthodox press Mispacha (www.mishpacha.com) organizations in the United States. emerged in Germany and continued and Ba-Kehilah (www.bakehila.com) Its website provides links on up until the 1930s. It included such pride themselves on being community services, events, family titles as Der treue Zionswächter, unaffiliated with any of the life, holidays, a job board, and Jeschurun, Jüdische Korrespondenz, authorities within the Haredi much more. The Rabbinical Jüdische Presse, Der Morgen, establishment. Scholars interested in Council of America is closely Nachalath Zwei and Der Israelit. the changing demographics of aligned with many mainstream The Compact Memory project, Orthodox and Haredi society and Orthodox institutions. Its website based at universities in Aachen, its increasing involvement with the (www.rabbis.org) includes a link to Frankfurt, and Cologne, Germany, outside world will find a good deal the online version of Tradition: A 36 Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, Amnon Yitzchak. At the Keren and a host of other resources. Daat Yishai website, Rav Mordechai (www.daat.ac.il) is a site devoted to Elon delivers a weekly shiur on medical ethics and halakah. Its site parashat hashavua that is contains a number of position broadcast on the radio papers and also articles from the (http:// elon.org). journal Assia. Yeshiva University has created YU Torah Online The Machon (www.yutorah.org), which provides Meir Institute online access to a wide range of of Jewish internal textual, video, and audio Studies, publications. affiliated with the Several organizations founded by teachings of and directed toward Orthodox Rav Kook, Jewish women have websites, maintains a including Kolech—Religious website Women’s Forum (www.kolech.org) and the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) (www.jofa.org). (www.machonmeir.net) that offers a digital A number of organizations reach version of the weekly out to affiliated and unaffiliated Torah commentary Image reproduced with permission of Jews in the hopes that they will presented in its www.CartoonStock.com. become more observant. Tzohar is synagogue along community produces Kol tsofayikh, an organization of Religious Zionist with a trove of which contains the teachings of Israeli rabbis who aim to connect audio and digital files. Yeshivat Har Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu with secular Israelis and strengthen Etzion, a hesder yeshiva, offers the (www.harav.org). The Kollel Iyun their religious life. Its website Virtual Beit Midrash, which Hadaf offers online free resources (www.tzohar.org.il) provides presents Web-based, yeshiva-style for daf yomi learners around the information on the organization’s teaching on Torah and Judaism world (www.dafyomi.co.il). activities and includes articles from (www.vbm-torah.org). Tsohar, a journal that provides a As Dr. Kimmy Caplan of Bar-Ilan forum for discussion for the Communication within Orthodox University has observed, an explosion religious Zionist community in and Haredi Communities of circulating audio-based and video- Israel. One of the site’s innovations The internal official and unofficial based sermons has taken place in is a system which allows people to communications of different groups Haredi society during the past twenty ask Tsohar’s rabbis questions on any present a vivid picture of the inner years. These are mostly issued on halakic subject, and to receive a dynamics of the various segments cassettes and CDs. Inevitably, despite thorough and clear reply by email. and streams within Orthodox rabbinic injunctions against the use of The website of Aish ha-Torah Judaism. Issues of Shabat be-shabato the Internet, the mode of (www.aish.com), affiliated with the from 1999 to present are available dissemination of these materials has Lithuanian Haredi tradition, online at the Moreshet website been almost entirely Web-based. Even includes texts and audio files on a (http://moreshet.co.il). From now there are websites that have wide range of relevant topics, and Chabad, a weekly publication downloadable sermons. The words of an “Ask the Rabbi” function. entitled Sikhat ha-shavu‘a can be Rabbi Shalom Arush, spiritual leader Chabad.org, the main website found at the Tseire Chabad website of the Sephardic followers of Bratslav (www.chabad.org) for Chabad- (www.chabad.org.il/Magazines/Art Hasidism can be found on the Web Lubavitch, contains more than icles.asp?CategoryID=30). Also (http://behappy.web-site.co.il). 100,000 articles, ranging from from Chabad and available online is Another site that offers audio and history to science to basic Judaism Sikhat ha-ge’ulah (www.hageula.com/ downloadable sermons belongs to R. to Hasidut. It also allows users to ?CTopic=1). Machon Meir issues Daniel Zer (http://rabenu.co.il). The “Ask the Rabbi.” Also directed Be-ahavah u’be-emunah at its Maran website (http:// maran1.com) toward secular Jewish audiences is website (www.machonmeir.org.il/ includes video and audio sermons the Shofar website (www.shofar.net) hebrew/main.asp?cat_id=11). The from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. under the leadership of Rabbi nationalist religious Sephardi 37 If critically used, the Internet can have been many third-party intervention in determining their serve as a kind of barometer of attempts to organize them on sustainability and their research popular sentiment. Tamar Rotem portals, individuals’ collections of value is obvious. A coordinated described in Haaretz (December links, scholars’ Web pages, etc. effort to preserve, catalogue, and 25, 2002) how Haredi users However, these do not provide index these materials is urgently communicate with each other on systematic indexing or archiving, or needed. B’Hadrei Haredim, a popular forum any guarantee of longevity. on the Hyde Park website. The Heidi Lerner is the Hebraica/ Modiya website includes links to The research value of these Judaica cataloguer at Stanford several directories of Haredi forums materials to the study of Orthodox University Libraries. (http://modiya.nyu.edu/handle/ Judaism is quite considerable. 1964/1003). The JOFA site has a Scholars have acknowledged the list of blogs that are relevant to importance of institutional Orthodox Jewish feminists collections of physical ephemera, (www.jofa.org/about.php/ notably the National Library of NEW resources/blogs). Israel (the new official name of the Jewish National and University Much research has been done on Library in Jerusalem); the
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