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December 31, 1998
For the Oldest of Lessons, the Newest of Tools
By JON KALISH
ews may be the People of the Book, but they have come to cherish the CD-ROM, particularly the CD-ROM's ability to store a lot of religious text and teach children about the traditions of Judaism in an entertaining fashion.
The two major distributors of Judaic software are the Davka Corporation (www.davka.com), based in Chicago, and Torah Educational Software (www.torahscholar.com), in Jerusalem. Davka, which has been around since 1982, grew out of the Institute for Computers in Jewish Life. CD's with Judaic graphics and Hebrew-language software are the most popular categories in Davka's catalogue of more than 100 titles, said Rabbi Irving Rosenbaum, the company's president.
Linda Rosier
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Torah Educational Software was started in 1991 by a newly Orthodox Jew who became fascinated with Bible codes. He emigrated from the United States to Israel and runs T.E.S. with another American businessman who moved to Israel.
In the last couple of years, Hebrew word-processing software has been a big part of T.E.S.'s business. The company distributes what may be the most comprehensive -- and expensive -- CD-ROM in the Jewish market: Bar-Ilan University's Judaic Library version 6.0. It sells for $698 and contains the Torah, the Talmud and about 200 other religious texts. The CD is the fruit of Bar-Ilan's Responsa Project, which has been transcribing religious texts for computer use for 30 years. The first version of Judaic Library sold for $1,200, but each subsequent version has come with more text, an improved search engine and a lower price tag.
Initially, there were rumblings of criticism among Orthodox Jews of the use of CD-ROM technology, Rabbi Rosenbaum said, but the disks are now stocked by religious-supply stores, like those in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Sales of religious CD's in Orthodox neighborhoods tend to be of the Hebrew-only variety. The study of holy texts is the ultimate priority in the Orthodox world, and many publishers of Judaic software say they expect something of a buzz when DVD disks arrive with the layout of the Talmud page on the screen mimicking the way the pages appear in bound copies.
The devotion to Torah study has led some Jews to justify the counterfeiting of software. But last week, a rabbinical court in Jerusalem ruled that it was a sin to make unauthorized copies of CD-ROM's. The rabbis said that while counterfeiting was not the equivalent of stealing, it was like trespassing and that Jews who bought bootleg CD's were ""helping the sinner.""
Religious Jews, in pairs of study partners, have been reading and discussing their holy books in study halls for millenniums. It is most unlikely that the advent of digital technology will change that. But in this technological age, CD-ROM's are likely to become an increasingly important tool in that learning.
Related Sites
These sites are not part of The New York Times on the Web, and The Times has no control over their content or availability.Davka Corporation Torah Educational Software Jon Kalish is a freelance newspaper and radio journalist who lives in Manhattan.
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