Guide and Review of Online Resources – 2022 – Part I

By Ezra Brand

Ezra Brand is an independent researcher based in Tel Aviv. He has an MA from Revel Graduate School at Yeshiva University in Medieval Jewish History, where he focused his research on 13th and 14th century sefirotic Kabbalah. He is interested in using digital and computational tools in historical research. He has contributed a number of times previously to the Seforim Blog (tag), and a selection of his research can be found at his Academia.edu profile. He can be reached at ezrabrand-at-gmail.com; any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.[1]

Intro

It’s an exciting time to be a reader of scholarship, and to be engaged with the field. The dramatic shift to “remote” and “virtual” over the past two years may be on par with the shifts to writing and the codex around the 9th century) and the printing press in the 15th.[2]

Digital publishing has become more and more mainstream. As defined by Wikipedia (in entry “Electronic publishing”):

“Electronic publishing (also referred to as publishing, digital publishing, or online publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, digital magazines, and the development of digital libraries and catalogs. It also includes the editing of books, journals and magazines to be posted on a screen (computer, e-reader, tablet, or smartphone.”

Regarding Hebrew books specifically, and for recent data, Israeli National Library annual statistics for 2020 state (Hebrew, my translation):

“In 2020, digital publishing was significantly expanded. Not all the digital books have been processed [by the library] yet, but already 799 digital books have been registered in the National Library, from publishers, research institutions, private individuals and more […]

For many in the past year, digital publication has become the primary mode of distribution, as opposed to paper. Notable in this area is the relatively small amount of children’s books (8%) compared to the high number of digital reference literature (69%).

The share of [books put out by] associations (43%) is particularly high, especially for reference books in the field of Israeli society and Jewish studies. [The share of books put out by] [p]rivate publishers (37%) include[s] many biographies, rabbinic literature and a few children’s books that have come out. Commercial publishers released most of the digital prose books.”

Specifically regarding rabbinic literature, one scholar pointed out already in 2016: “Searching for ancient original Jewish sources online, it is astonishing how diverse and numerous are the websites that are available.”[3]

At the same time as the trend towards digital publishing and distribution is occurring, there is also a movement towards “open access”. In this context, “open access” means an academic resource, whether databases, journals, or other tools, with no paywalls or subscriptions required to access content.

Over the first few decades of electronic resources, most of the resources were proprietary. They were generally available on a CD, which had to be bought. With the shift to the internet, many of these resources became available online, but required a subscription.

The movement towards freely available scholarship has continued to gain steam, making a huge amount of cutting edge scholarly publications available for free, and for all. In addition, there are a huge amount of grassroots initiatives to make available primary sources for study.

Open-access can be financially sustained in one of the following major ways:

1. Volunteer work
2. Funding by institution (esp. non-profit, university, or government) or individual donation
3. Advertising

The open-source resources in this guide are mostly supported in one of the first two ways.

Besides for full open-access, another model is called “freemium”. Freemium, as I use it in this context, means that some very basic part is provided for free, with the hope that the main product will be bought.

Some examples of freemium content that I’ve found helpful are:

Amazon listing pages for books. Amazon has bibliographical info, blurbs of reviews by scholars and media, crowd-sourced reviews and free excerpts of ebooks for Kindle, called “sample”, and the ability to add to a list.

Another example is JSTOR, with bibliographical info and first page of article.

On these resources, see more detail later in the guide.[4]

Electronic vs. physical – pros and cons

Electronic material has a lot of advantages, though there are some disadvantages.
For the intellectually curious, the relative ease of access is honestly astonishing, and it’s truly a wonderful time to be a book lover (not to mention the higher level of book typesetting).

Of course, physical books have certain advantages, tangible and intangible, that people get roused up about, especially traditionalists. And of course Orthodox Jews don’t use electronic sources on Shabbat and holidays. But electronic sources have their own massive advantages:

1. Instantly accessible
2. Searchable
3. Can do various data analysis
4. Easily shared and saved via copy-paste and screenshots
5. Easily highlighted and annotated
6. Text size can be customized
7. Takes up far less physical space
8. Allows for new forms of scholarship (such as Prof. Moshe Koppel’s algorithms for proving authorship, discussed in a number of Seforim Blog posts).[5]

I personally have switched over to electronic texts wherever possible.

Of course, traditional physical seforim and internet-based resources aren’t mutually exclusive. One can have the best of both worlds. In Modern Orthodox yeshivot it’s been a common sight already for many years for people to have a laptop before them. Admittedly, the main use of the laptop is for notetaking, but it can also act as a portal to a world of supplemental seforim.

About this guide

Jewish culture is stereotypically one of the book. There is understandably a huge literature on of books in Jewish history. For one example, on the material aspect of books in Jewish history, see Malachi Beit-Arié’s monumental 700-page book, Hebrew Codicology, recently finalized, and available for free online here and here. With the shift to virtual, Jewish studies haven’t been slacking.

Scope of the Guide

This guide will mostly not cover resources related to the following topics:

1. Primary sources and studies of Tanach/Bible , Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha (=”Seforim Hitzonim”), meaning works up to the period of Chazal, circa 100 BCE. So for example, I didn’t include Bar Ilan University’s Mikra’ot Gedolot Haketer (מקראות גדולות הכתר – see on this project Wikipedia here (English) and here (Hebrew)) or their weekly Parshat Hashavua sheet.
2. At the opposite end, the Late Modern period (circa 1850-2000). So it won’t cover resources related to modern Hebrew literature, Haskalah, Zionism, the modern State of Israel, Holocaust, contemporary Jewish thought and hashkafa, or more contemporary seforim (such as R’ Ashlag’s commentary on Zohar, and those of his descendants).

A large part of my annotations are taken from the descriptions provided by the maintainers of the project and from Wikipedia. All translations are my own, unless noted otherwise.

My translation is sometimes loose, and I did not always fact-check. The info in this guide should definitely be double-checked if used for anything more scholarly.

In general, my main intention is to raise awareness and point readers to some of the incredible resources currently available to anyone with an internet connection.

Note: The website of the resource is hyperlinked in the name. In cases where only a part of a website is relevant to the resources under discussion, I try to link to the page on the website that best acts as a portal to the resources.

Another note: It’s quite incredible how much is now available on the internet. At the same time, projects become outdated and links become broken very rapidly. I hope to be able to update this guide every once in a while, but unfortunately the rapid changes in the layout of the internet is one of the blessings and the curses that come with this new medium (victims of the unfortunate phenomenon of “link rot”).

While researching this guide, I constantly found new resources that I was not aware of, and I’m certain (and hoping, in a good way) that this guide will rapidly become more and more outdated as more resources come online, and (negatively) as links break.

Other Guides

There are other guides, such as that of university library guides and other websites.[6] However, many of these guides are meant for students and researchers, and less for the general educated reader with an interest in these topics. In addition, many previous guides are from ten years ago or longer, and many of the links no longer work .

Outline of this Guide

Primary texts

A huge amount of primary texts have been transcribed and scanned, and are readily available.

Primary texts – transcribed

Digital editions in text format.[7]

Open-access

1. Sefaria . Large number of texts, as well as English translations.
   1. Wikipedia – English: “Sefaria has a vast library of Jewish text, including Tanakh, Talmud, and Jewish prayers alongside sources in philosophy, mysticism, Jewish law, and newer works. Some works, such as Tanakh and Talmud, feature English translations. These are either crowdsourced, provided by publishers, or in the public domain. Contains a complete English translation of Rashi’s commentary on the Torah, the William Davidson Talmud translation,[8] and a complete translation of Ibn Ezra’s Torah commentaries, one of the only resources to have a complete translation of these works in English. Many works are linked with their respective commentaries. For example, clicking on a verse in Tanakh will open a window on the side, allowing the user to open a commentary on that verse.”
   2. Some of the texts available, all highly credible works, and that I’ve personally used in Sefaria for study (all with hyper-linked table of contents, transcribed, searchable, downloadable, ability to make text larger, and many other features):
      1. Steinzaltz-Koren translation into English and commentary on Talmud Bavli
      2. Guggenheimer translation and commentary of Talmud Yerushalmi
      3. Mishnat Eretz Yisrael commentary on Mishnah
      4. Jastrow Dictionary
2. Al-Hatorah (על-התורה) .
   1. I only discovered this resource while researching this guide. My take: Recommended. Both Al-Hatorah as well as Sefaria are very user friendly and powerful both for looking up references, as well as for studying. However, not all of the transcriptions on Al-Hatorah are complete.
   2. Al-Hatorah has more developed tools for serious study (see my “story” earlier in this piece). While Sefaria has a bit of a cleaner interface and more modern UX/UI with lots of whitespace.
   3. The UX/UI is quite similar to the “Bar Ilan Responsa Project,” where the Table of Contents are set up as “trees”.
   4. From the About page: “ALHATORAH.ORG was founded by Rabbi Hillel & Neima Novetsky and their children, Yonatan, Aviva, Ariella, and Yehuda. Hillel is a musmakh of RIETS (YU) and earned an MA in Jewish History from Bernard Revel Graduate School and a PhD in Bible from Haifa University. Neima earned an MA in Bible from Bernard Revel Graduate School (YU) and teaches in Torah institutions in Israel. The content of the website is the product of an ongoing, worldwide, collaborative effort of Rabbis, scholars, educators, and laypeople.”
   5. See also their mission statement.
   6. Some of the works available there (many from recent critical editions):
      1. Targum Yerushalmi – Neofiti (תרגום ירושלמי – ניאופיטי). See description there: “This targum, based on a single known manuscript (Neofiti 1) in the Vatican Library copied in 1504, is the only known complete text of the “Targum Yerushalmi” on the Torah. Previously known brief extracts related to this targum had long been known in manuscripts of what is referred to by scholars as the “fragment targums”, which are cited in Jastrow’s Dictionary under the rubric “YII” and appear in various editions of Miqraot Gedolot interspersed with Targum Pseudo Jonathan under the rubric “Targum Yerushalmi”. Extensive manuscript pages of related material were also discovered in the Cairo Geniza in the 20th Century. This electronic text has been provided by the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon (CAL) project of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. It was originally entered under the guidance of Prof. M. Sokoloff for the preparation of his A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic based on the multi-volume editio-princeps of Prof. A. Diez-Macho (1968ff.) and a photographic edition of the manuscript by Makor Press. Additional marginal or interlinear variants have been added by CAL staff based on the photographs.”
      2. Mishnat Eretz Yisrael – modern scholarly commentary on Mishnah. (This commentary also in Sefaria, as mentioned in its entry.)
      3. Steinsaltz-Koren commentary on Talmud Bavli in Hebrew (Sefaria has the English translation and commentary, as mentioned in its entry.)
      4. List of translated works into English.
      5. Visualizations. Very interesting visualizations: timelines, maps, and lists.
3. Daat (דעת).
   1. Has both books as text, as well as scanned PDFs. Includes lots of out-of-copyright books, as well as recent open-access scholarly books, see here, and here.
   2. Wikipedia – Hebrew: “Daat is a Hebrew website whose main content is texts in the fields of Judaism and the humanities that were collected from various printed sources. The site contains learning and teaching materials in various fields: Bible, Torah Sheba’al Peh, Shabbat and festivals, Jewish history, Jewish thought, literature, studies of the Land of Israel, Shemita, medicine and halakhah, education, Hasidism, family studies, Hebrew law, army and war, the Holocaust, and more. The site includes extensive databases containing entire books, full text of articles published in about 30 different journals, photos and maps, illustrations, photographs and presentations.”
4. Kodesh.Snunit (סנונית – מאגר ספרות הקודש). Basic rabbinic texts.
   1. Great for referencing Tanach. Often is the first to come up in Google searches in Hebrew. For example, if I come across a reference to “Bereishit 1:1”, I’ll just google בראשית א, and generally the first result is to the first chapter of Bereishit.
5. Wikitext – Hebrew (וויקיטקסט).
   1. Wikipedia – Hebrew: “In May 2009, the Hebrew Wikitext reached 25,000 text units upon completion of uploading all of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah.”
   2. Due to the fact that it’s a crowd-sourced project, it very much has the feel of a “work-in-progress”, with lots of individual chapters missing transcriptions, and of uneven editorship.
   3. Despite this, a great resource, and one that many of other websites draw on.
   4. For example of interesting sefer found there, see R’ Heiman’s Toldot Tana’im VeAmora’im. I recently used Wikitext’s transcription to do various analyses of the entire corpus of names of rabbis found in Chazal.
6. Historical Dictionary Project of the Hebrew Language (המילון ההיסטורי ללשון העברית).
   1. Not especially user-friendly, meant for rigorous research.
   2. Wikipedia – Hebrew: “Includes a database of all the major works of the Hebrew language in antiquity. As of 2012, more than 7,900 works have been typed into the database, which include more than nine million words, and contain more than 36,000 entries. Work on the database continues consistently, both because of the need to update the database according to updated research, as well as due to the discovery of additional ancient works.”
7. Mamre Institute (מכון ממרא).
   1. Wikipedia: “The Mamre Institute is an Israeli research institute aimed at providing accessible and accurate texts for the Hebrew Bible, Mishnah, Tosefta, Babylonian Talmud, Jerusalem Talmud, Mishneh Torah and Targum Onkelos.”
8. Ben-Yehuda Project (פרויקט בן-יהודה) .
   1. Wikipedia – Hebrew: “The project includes, among other things, poetry, fiction, translation, research (עיון) and essays in Hebrew from the Middle Ages to the present day. As of October 2021 it includes over 28,000 works, by about 1,000 different authors.”
9. An Invitation to Piyut (הזמנה לפיוט).
   1. Tremendous database of piyyutim, with a huge number of piyyutim transcribed.
   2. Wikipedia – Hebrew: “A cultural-educational project that works to preserve and revive the traditions of piyyut and prayer of the Jewish people, through a website, publishing, conservation activities, community education and cultural events. The site has about 1,000 columns and articles, including personal columns, memoirs, introductory passages, and reviews. Among the authors of the site are Prof. Ephraim Hazan, Dr. Meir Buzaglo, Prof. Haviva Pedia, Prof. Edwin Seroussi, Rabbi Dr. Benny Lau and many others.”
10. Grimoar .
    1. Focuses on kabbalistic texts.
    2. Wikipedia – Hebrew: “A database collecting a large amount of Kabbalah books and books of Jewish thought typed and open for use.”
    3. Unfortunately, the website contains no bibliographical information whatsoever, such as on what edition or manuscript the text is based on. In general it’s unclear who hosts the website.
11. Chabad Library.
    1. Works of Chabad Chasidut transcribed.
12. Ramhal.net (קהילת הרמח”ל).
    1. Works of the Ramhal transcribed.
    2. From the About page: “The community was founded in 2002 with the aim of making Ramchal’s teachings accessible to the general public.”
13. Hassidout.org. Works of Kabbalah transcribed.
14. Moreh Nevuchim (מורה נבוכים) with mark-up.
    1. See description here: Hillel Gershuni and Yohai Makbili, “Guide for the Perplexed – Glossary and bibliography” (2019).

Requires subscription or purchase

15. Bar Ilan Responsa Project . Massive number of texts, with very high level of accuracy. Requires subscription.
    1. Wikipedia – English: “The database consists of one of the world’s largest electronic collections of Jewish texts in Hebrew. It includes numerous works from the Responsa Literature. The database also includes the Bible and the Talmud (with commentaries); articles about Jewish law and customs; Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah and the Shulchan Aruch with main commentaries; Zohar, Midrashim, and the Talmudic Encyclopedia.”

Primary texts – scanned

Mostly searchable via OCR, and in PDF format.

Open-access

1. HebrewBooks .
   1. Wikipedia – Hebrew: “Free online digital library for Torah literature. The site contains about 61,000 scanned Torah books and journals, from the beginning of printing to contemporary authors, most of them in Hebrew. The books can be viewed, downloaded and textually searched for in the book’s content. The site is accessible in Hebrew and English.”
   2. HebrewBooks is likely well-known to most readers. However, something that might be less well-known is that HebrewBooks has a new search page, officially in beta: https://beta.hebrewbooks.org/#gsc.tab=0. It’s a much more powerful search engine, with many new, modern features (bringing it closer to the Otzar HaChochma experience).[9]
2. Israel National Library (הספרייה הלאומית).
   1. Links to seforim accessed via search or direct link, no way to browse. However, the “Halach Brura” index (see later, under section “Index”) often links to it.
   2. Unfortunately, due to many changes and updates to the National Library website over the years, many of the links to the website found at outside websites are now broken.
   3. Presumably, the best way to find the work is to as follows:
      1. Search the name of the work in the National Library website search box (“Merhav”).
      2. Filter for “Available online” AND “Books”
      3. Click on “Online access”
   4. URLs of open-access works appear to following template: “https://www.nli.org.il/he/books/NNL_ALEPH00XXXXXXX/NLI”. For example, Ohev Yisra’el: https://www.nli.org.il/he/books/NNL_ALEPH001091556/NLI
3. Center for Jewish History.
   1. Links to seforim accessed via search or direct link, no way to browse. Has many primary texts available. Couldn’t find a simple way to search for seforim. However, the “Halach Brura” index (see later, under section “Index”) often links to it. For example, the sefer “Derech Yeshara”.
4. Portal HaDaf HaYomi (פורטל הדף היומי) .
   1. Has a few hundred scanned seforim, mostly relating to Talmud Bavli, many of them not available elsewhere. Examples: R’ Kashet’s highly methodical works on lomdus ( קובץ יסודת וחקירות ; אמרי במערבא ; פלפולא דאורייתא ; דרכי התלמודים ; see also there R’ Kashash’s similar style work, קובץ מיסודות הש”ס); R’ Amitai’s well-researched and highly-structured works on Torah and science (דע מאיין באו ; הידיעות המדעיות שבדברי חז“ל ; היחס שבין היקף המעגל לרוחבו ; באהלי שם ; מנא להו ; אמונה טהורה); R’ Pinchuk’s intro to Talmud Yerushalmi (מבוא ללימוד התלמוד הירושלמי); some great works on Talmudic humor (Engleman’s שעשועי ; Lifshitz’s ברוח טובה ).
5. Goethe University Frankfurt Library.
6. Massorti.com . Has all of Lieberman’s Tosefet Rishonim and Tosefta Kifshuta available. See links at Halacha Brura > מפרשי תוספתא.
7. Abuelafia.blogspot.
   1. A number of seforim by the medieval kabbalist R’ Avraham Abulafia, published recently by R’ Amnon Gros. This is R’ Gros’s website.[10]
8. Google Books.
   1. No way to browse, only search. But relevant works can be found using Halacha Brura’s index (see appendix), see this webpage especially. Has a few hundred scanned manuscripts and early printed works.
9. Israel613 .
   1. An eccentric website, mostly dedicated to contemporary hareidi works and polemics. However, there are some PDFs of interest, of historical hasidic works. No realy browsing capabilities on the website, but can be found using Halacha Brura’s index (see appendix).
10. Google Drive. Sometimes individuals upload scans of seforim, and share the links. For example, the full set of R’ Moshe Cordevero’s Or Yakar is currently hosted by an unknown host on Google Drive (see Halacha Brura > Kabbala > “אור יקר, ר’ משה קורדוברו, פרוש על הזהר, ירושלים תשכ”ב”).
11. Epidat .
    1. See description at the website of European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS): “Epidat, short for epigraphic database, is a research platform for Jewish funerary epigraphy. Currently, Epidat contains transcriptions, translations, descriptions, and iconographic documentation of 43,838 headstones (with 79,972 digital images) from 233 historical Jewish cemeteries, spanning a period of 900 years (1040-1952) and covering six European countries (Germany, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Latvia and Czechia).”

Requires subscription or purchase

12. Otzar HaHochma (אוצר החכמה).
    1. Generally requires subscription. However, interestingly enough, as of this writing (23-Jan-2022), it appears that the entire basic Otzar HaHochma is open-access, and has been for three months already! As per the pop-up notification on the website, and the banner at the top while browsing: “בס”ד 19/10/2021 . Dear users, the system is undergoing upgrades at this time, some users may experience technical difficulties, therefore we are giving free access to the beta site: beta.otzar.org. This service will be free of charge until further notice. Please note the printing option as well as the add-on packages are available for purchase only on the old website.” Add-ons include seforim from the following publishers (in order of price): Oz VeHodor, Mossad HaRav Kook, Mechon Yerushalayim, Mechon Ahavat Shalom, Mechon Ofek, Mechon Hochmat Shelomo.
    2. Wikipedia – Hebrew: “Otzar HaHochma is a database containing over 110,000 Torah and academic books scanned in the same format as the original printing pages that have undergone optical character recognition, which allows information to be retrieved using a search engine embedded in the system. In version 19.0 (summer 2021) of the database there are 112,749 titles. The update rate of the database is about 5,000 books annually. The database allows the books to be divided into categories, such as: Bible and its commentators; Mishnah and its commentaries; Babylonian Talmud and its commentaries; Jerusalem Talmud and its commentaries; Kabbalah; Mussar; Hasidut; history; disputes (פולמוסים); journals; community books (ספרי קהילות), jubilee books (ספרי יובל), memorial books (ספרי זיכרון), manuscripts and first editions.”

Primary texts – manuscripts – scanned and transcribed

Open-access

1. Ktiv (כתיב) .
   1. Wikipedia – Hebrew: “The Ktiv project, launched with the 17th World Congress of Jewish Studies in August 2017, is the next stage in the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts’s life, designed to make photographs of all Hebrew manuscripts in the world accessible to the public on the Internet. Upon its launch, four years after the digitization project began, Ktiv had full scans with an excellent resolution of 45,000 manuscripts (out of 90,000) that together hold 4.37 million pages available to the public. The project was organized in collaboration with the National Library of France (BnF), the Rabbinical Seminary of America (JTS), the Palatine Library, the British Library, the National Library of Austria, the Bavarian State Library, the Rosenthaliana Library, Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the Vatican Library, Hebrew Union College, The State Library in Berlin, the National Library of Russia, the National Library of Florence, and more.”
   2. See also “Moreshet B’reshet” of the National Library of Israel. From the page: “This page focuses on webpages set up by the National Library over the years. Although these webpages are not updated, they preserve valuable items and information for future generations. Therefore, these sites are maintained and made accessible.”
   3. For example, see the webpage for searching for images of Talmudic manuscripts (עיון בכתבי היד).
2. Friedberg projects. Each will have its own entry below. See YouTube video for recent discussion of some of these projects (uploaded 2-Feb-2022). Each will have its own entry below. All require registration (free). The first two projects appear to be the ones most actively used and developed: Hachi Garsinan and Genizah Project.
   1. Hachi Garsinan – The Friedberg Project for Talmud Bavli Variants (הכי גרסינן).
   2. Friedberg Genizah Project.
   3. Mahadura – the Friedberg Site for Transcriptions and Synopsis (מהדורא).
   4. Yad Harambam (יד הרמב”ם – פרוייקט פרידברג לשינויי נוסחאות ברמב”ם).
   5. The Nahum Collection of Yemenite Manuscripts (אוסף נחום לכתבי יד תימניים).
   6. The Friedberg Judeo-Arabic Project (פרויקט פרידברג לערבית יהודית).
3. Hachi Garsinan – The Friedberg Project for Talmud Bavli Variants (הכי גרסינן).[11]
   1. Requires registration (free).
   2. From the webpage:
      1. “The Hachi Garsinan site displays all variant-readings of the Talmud Bavli, including images and transcriptions, with sophisticated comparison tools between the variants.
      2. The “Hachi Garsinan” site is meant to serve the wide range of all Bavli learners and researchers: from academic researchers, through Yeshiva communities and Torah students, as well as anyone interested in exploring the variations of the Talmud Bavli and its transformations throughout the ages.
      3. The site contains high quality digital images of all original textual witnesses that exist for the Talmud Bavli (manuscripts, early printings, Genizah fragments, binding fragments and other fragments), accompanied by precise transcriptions of the text in the image. The site integrates additional functions, including full text search, Sussmann catalog, Dikdukei Sofrim, and also save, copy and print options.
      4. The Amuta was established as a joint venture of the “Friedberg Genizah Project” (FGP) and the “Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society”(FJMS). The textual witness’ transcriptions, as well as the software for connecting the image and its transcriptions, are prepared by the Amuta Transcription Team.
      5. Five hundred years after the publication of the Talmud Bavli masterpiece in Venice by Daniel Bombergi, the Hachi Garsinan Talmudic project, is a breakthrough presenting all variant-readings in a precise and sophisticated manner.”
   3. See the review by Amit Gvaryahu: ““We Read Thus”: On Hachi Garsinan and Learning Talmud in the 21st century | The Talmud Blog” (June 19, 2016).
   4. Also includes the following foundational works, open-access and user-friendly:
      1. Jacob Sussman, Otzar Kitvey Yad Talmudiyyim (יעקב זוסמן, אוצר כתבי–היד התלמודיים)
      2. R’ Raphael Nathan Nata Rabbinovicz, Dikdukei Sofrim (ר’ רפאל נתן נטע ראבינאוויטץ, דקדוקי סופרים)
      3. Many relevant articles (“Ref. Materials > Introductions”).
4. Friedberg Genizah Project .
   1. Requires registration (free).
   2. From the homepage:
      1. “The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) presents a real revolution in the study and research of the field of Cairo Genizah and Jewish Studies in general. Its main task is to computerize the entire corpus of Genizah manuscripts and Genizah-related materials: images, identifications, catalogs, metadata, transcriptions, translations and bibliographical references. In the course of this project a full digitization of the entire Genizah collections has been done, together with a huge database which is accessible to every scholar and student. The project also introduces new designated tools for Genizah research which are based on advanced technologies of image processing.
      2. The Site was developed by Genazim Digital, headed by Professor Yaacov Choueka. Currently it is supported by the Association for the Study of Jewish Manuscripts.”
5. Mahadura – the Friedberg Site for Transcriptions and Synopsis (מהדורא).
   1. I tried browsing existing projects, got a lot of errors.
   2. From the homepage:
      1. “The Mahadura site is designed to create, preserve and share transcriptions and synopses of manuscripts and early printings. The site is meant for Academics, Biblical and Religious Scholars, anyone who is interested in publishing new transcriptions of ancient Jewish texts and preparation of critical revisions. Currently the site allows the user to create new projects in any area of Jewish studies, including uploading of images and texts and to create new transcriptions of manuscripts and prints in a simple painless way, and to view images and transcriptions, and to try the transcription tools in the existing projects. The creator of each project will be able to define a closed group of colleagues to work together on a project, and then decide when it will be publically available. In the future you will be able to create variant synopsis comparisons, using specialized algorithms.
      2. The Amuta was established as a joint venture of the “Friedberg Genizah Project” (FGP) and the “Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society”(FJMS).”
6. Yad Harambam (יד הרמב”ם – פרוייקט פרידברג לשינויי נוסחאות ברמב”ם).
   1. Requires registration (free).
   2. From the webpage:
      1. “The “Yad HaRambam” site was established for the purpose of presenting all versions of the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah (“haYad haHazaka”). It includes images, transcriptions and a sophisticated synopsis (comparison) system between versions.
      2. The site is meant to serve all who want to study the Mishneh Torah; academic researchers, Torah students in Yeshivot, everyone who is interested in historical versions of The Mishneh Torah and its changing unfolding versions through the ages.
      3. The site includes high resolution digital images of early versions of the Mishneh Torah including manuscripts and early printings. Each image is supplemented by an accurate transcription.
      4. The site also integrates additional functions, including full text search on all Rambam textual witnesses, the ability to save, copy and print, personal workspaces, and more.
      5. The Amuta was established as a joint venture of the “Friedberg Genizah Project” (FGP) and the “Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society”(FJMS). The textual witness’ transcriptions, as well as the software for connecting the image and its transcriptions, are prepared by the Amuta Transcription Team.”
7. The Nahum Collection of Yemenite Manuscripts (אוסף נחום לכתבי יד תימניים).
   1. Requires registration (free).
   2. From the webpage:
      1. “The aim of this website is to present efficient research tools for researchers interested in the Nahum Collection of Yemenite Manuscripts. The website contains about 80,000 high-quality digital images of the (mostly) handwritten fragments and volumes in this collection. The site also contains short (1-2 lines) identifications of these manuscripts, whenever available, as well as scanned images of the corresponding entries from the relevant catalogs The site is under continuous development, and we hope to include in it more information in the future. The shelfmarks of the various manuscripts were primordially determined by the existing shelfmarks as marked on the manuscripts and in the catalogs, and when these were missing, new serially shelfmarks were given. In addition, there is a correspondence table in the website that enables direct access to the available information according to the entry-number in the above-mentioned catalogs. Viewing entire volumes can be efficiently browsed using special software that simulates the manual flipping of pages as in a real book. This Site was initially developed by Genazim Digital, headed by Professor Yaacov Choueka and is now supported by the Association for the Study of Jewish Manuscripts.”
8. The Friedberg Judeo-Arabic Project (פרויקט פרידברג לערבית יהודית).
   1. Requires registration (free).
   2. From the webpage:
      1. “This site is designed to assist researchers of the Judeo-Arabic gain a comprehensive and fundamental knowledge of this language, especially in the lexicon, semantics, idiomatic expressions, and word-related areas. This is done by establishing an extensive computerized corpus of titles and advanced software that can search for words and phrases and display their instances in the corpus (or selected parts thereof) with suitable context and various statistics.
      2. For every page of every work in the corpus, a good quality image is available and can be viewed with its transcription, for testing and comparison. In the first stage, the site will contain Judeo-Arabic titles that have already appeared in print, focusing on titles that were written up to the 16th century. With time, the corpus will be expanded, hopefully encompassing all Judeo-Arabic titles in the mentioned group.
      3. When the corpus will be sufficiently broad, advanced tools of computational linguistics and natural language processing will be developed and will reveal interesting structures and linguistic connections that can be discovered only with the help of a computerized system. This Site was initially developed by Genazim Digital, headed by Professor Yaacov Choueka and is now supported by the Association for the Study of Jewish Manuscripts.”
   3. Includes foundational works, open-access:

      1. מרדכי עקיבא פרידמן, מילון הערבית יהודית מימי הבינים : לתעודות הגניזה של ספר הודו ולטקסטים אחרים

9. Talmud Yerushalmi digital critical edition (תלמוד ירושלמי מהדורה דיגיטלית).
   1. Project of Prof. Menachem Katz of University of Haifa. In beta, only Yevamot is available.[12]
   2. An incredible project, with tremendous potential.
10. Hebrew Manuscripts : Free Texts . Hosted on archive.org. From the About section: “Hebrew and Judaica manuscripts from Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library.” Currently shows 334 manuscripts.
11. Digitized Items: Hebrew Manuscripts . From the About page: “[t]his project will make 1.5 million digitized pages freely available over the next three years. Portions of the Bodleian and Vatican Libraries’ collections of Hebrew manuscripts […] have been selected for digitization by a team of scholars and curators from around the world.”
    1. Based on my count, links to 773 Bodleian manuscripts, and 641 Vatican manuscripts.
    2. See also here: Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books, wide range of ways to browse 806 Bodleian manuscripts.

Requires subscription or purchase

12. The Sol and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank ; Primary Textual Witnesses to Tannaitic Literature.
    1. From the home page:
       1. “Welcome to our new integrated website: Cooperative Development Initiative – Created by CDI Systems in partnership with the Saul Lieberman Institute of Talmudic Research of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Bar Ilan University’s Institute for Computerization in Jewish Life.
       2. This new resource upgrades and integrates the three Judaic studies databases developed by these institutions:
          1. The Sol and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank.
          2. The Index of References Dealing with Talmudic Literature, offering pinpointed citations from hundreds of classic and modern scholarly works directly related to the specific selected passage within Talmudic literature.
          3. Primary Textual Witnesses to Tannaitic Literature.”
    2. See under section “Bibliographic info” for “The Index of References Dealing with Talmudic Literature”.

[1] I’d like to thank Eliezer Brodt, Sholom Licht, and my father and brother for looking over previous drafts of this piece, and providing very helpful comments and feedback. Of course, the final product is mine, for better or for worse.
[2] On the late shift to writing, Yaakov Zussman and others have convincingly argued that Torah Sheba’al Peh was written down only in the post-talmudic era, besides for midrashim in Eretz Yisrael.  For the Jewish shift to using the codex, see Malachi Beit-Arie, Hebrew Codicology (2022), pp. 39ff (the entire book is open-access on Academia.edu). For the influence of the printing press on the Jewish community, see Zeev Gries (2007), The Book in the Jewish World, 1700–1900.
[3] “Apolline Thromas, “12 Digital Resources of the Rabbinic Literature: Radical Change with a Click of the Mouse“, in: Ancient Worlds in Digital Culture (2016).
[4] It should be pointed out that many resources that are behind a paywall can be accessed for free by using easy to use “shadow libraries”. Especially for academic literature, Sci-Hub and Library Genesis (Libgen) are some of the best such libraries. Of course, every person must decide whether they consider this contravention of paywall to be halachic and/or ethical.
[5] Koppel, “Attribution and Misattribution: On Computational Linguistics, Heresy and Journalism” (July 11, 2011): “Some of this work has been applied to topics of particular interest to students of Jewish texts, such as strong evidence that the collection of responsa Torah Lishmah was written by Ben Ish Chai (although he often quoted the work as if it were written by someone else) and that all of the letters in Genizat Harson are forgeries”. Moshe Schorr, “Who Wrote the Late Volumes of Igrot Moshe?” (January 20, 2019): “Given the preponderance of evidence that the later Igrot Moshe volumes are real (and spectacular), I think we can put the various theories of alternative authorship to rest. The claims of the editors — that the latest teshuvot were dictated — explains the ‘steroid spike’, and all available evidence supports their central contention, that they didn’t change the actual content. In short: it’s legit.”
[6] Here are some guides that I found especially useful:

Guides by librarians: 

1. eBooks | Libraries and Information System | Bar-Ilan University
2. Talmud & Oral Law | Libraries and Information System | Bar-Ilan University
3. Jewish History | Libraries and Information System | Bar-Ilan University
4. המכללה האקדמית הרצוג > ספריות > מאגרים בחוג ללשון עברית
5. המכללה האקדמית הרצוג > ספריות > מאגרים בחוג למחשבת ישראל
6. המכללה האקדמית הרצוג > ספריות > מאגרים בחוג לספרות עברית
7. Center for Jewish History > LibGuides > A-Z Databases
8. ארון הספרים היהודי המקוון – מאגרי מידע ואתרי ספרים סרוקים | Safranim’s Blog
9. Recommended Websites – *Jewish Studies – Research Guides at Northwestern University
10. eTexts – Directory of Judaica online resources – Guides at Penn Libraries
11. Resources for Doing Research – Jewish Studies – Guides at Johns Hopkins University
12. Turning the Page: Jewish Print Cultures & Digital Humanities – An EAJS Roundtable

Others: 

1. מאגר תורני – ויקיפדיה
2. Torah database – Wikipedia
3. השפה העברית – קישורים
4. פורטל הדף היומי > כלי עזר ללומד
5. הלכה ברורה > ספרייה וירטואלית
6. Search Engines and Other Web-Resources | The Talmud Blog
7. Textual Witnesses | The Talmud Blog:
8. Rabbinics
9. Online Resources for Talmud Research, Study, and Teaching

For a relevant university syllabus, see Prof. Aaron Ahrend’s syllabus to his course “Research Guidance in Bibliography and Writing”, which I took many years ago in the course of my MA in Talmud at Bar-Ilan, see here. The course and course packet went over many digital tools, however the syllabus available online only gives topic headings, and bibliography of published articles.
[7] On the genre, see Kenneth M. Price, “Electronic Scholarly Editions“, in: Susan Schreibman and Ray Siemens (Eds.),  A Companion to Digital Literary Studies (2008); Greta Franzini et. al., “A Catalogue of Digital Editions”, in Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices, pp.161-182; Menachem Katz et. al., “Talmud Yerushalmi Digital Critical Edition – IRCDL 2022” (2022).
[8] In the About page there: “includes Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz’s complete Modern Hebrew and English translations of the Talmud”.
[9] Thanks to Eliezer Brodt for bringing this new tool to my attention.
[10]  See Boaz Hus, שאלת קיומה של מיסטיקה יהודית, 2016, pp. 146-147, for a discussion of these editions. (Book available in Kotar here.)
[11] See review here: Menachem Katz, Assael Shmeltzer, Hillel Gershuni, Sara Preis, “The Hachi Garsinan Project as a Critical Edition of the Talmud Bavli“, (September 2017).
[12] See full overview here: Menachem Katz et. al., “Talmud Yerushalmi Digital Critical Edition – IRCDL 2022” (2022).