Virtual program.  Please register HERE.

Every part of our lives is played out on the digital playing field, including our Jewish lives. Whether it's learning, leisure or business, we have some digital connection. This session will explore the creation of Jewdle, the impacts of Sefaria and how social media spaces have even impacted the halachic process.

Jewish engagement in the digital space finds its roots in the decision to write down the Mishnah following the destruction of the Second Temple and advent and rise of Rabbinic Judaism. A millennia later, with the invention of the European printing press our Jewish texts are disseminated far and wide, and suddenly paginated and type set in a way that would make referencing and cross tabulation possible.

This evolution saw the development of codification, commentaries, super commentaries and eventually found there way into a beautifully digitized web of interconnectedness that we know as Sefaria. At the same time as Sefaria was coming online, social media spaces for discussions about Jewish texts and ideas was gaining traction. These spaces allowed for the expansion of the Beit Midrash and the effective crowd sourcing of textual ideas and ultimately halachic decision making.

Join Rabbi Alon Meltzer, Director of Programs at Shalom, a social educational not for profit in Sydney Australia, and Associate Rabbi at Mizrachi Synagogue for a deep dive into the history of Jewish texts, the conversations about them, the impacts of the technologies that governed their access, and the power of the words that enable the Jewish people to be the people of the book.