American Jews have been among the most enthusiastic adapters of the latest technology. Yet their sacred texts are still bound between the leather covers of limited-edition volumes. Now comes a new Web site to change all that.
The Tagged Tanakh is designed to serve as a collaborative platform for commentary on the Jewish Bible, or Tanakh. The brainchild of the Jewish Publication Society — publisher of the American Jewish community’s most widely used English-language translation of the Hebrew Bible — the new Web site seeks to democratize Jewish learning by providing a digital forum for scholars as well as lay people.
The site, which previously required a registration code during its soft launch phase, will be open to all beginning September . 8, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. For a yet-to-be-disclosed subscription price, individuals will be able to log on, read any biblical passage, look up a particular term or tag — for example, “kosher food laws” or “attitudes toward gentiles” — and post commentaries. In addition to individuals, JPS will offer subscription rates to organizations and businesses.The site does not include advertising.
“The beauty of the platform is that the potential exists on multiple levels, whether it be scholarly, whether it be a social tool, whether it be a place to conserve and share commentaries and people’s responses and interpretations of commentaries,” said J.T. Waldman, director of Interactive Media for JPS.
There will be no promotional blitz accompanying the launch of the Tagged Tanakh. Instead, Waldman said he has been reaching out to bloggers and conducting demonstrations at Jewish conferences and at Jewish campus organizations such as Hillel. A Facebook application and Drupal modules are in the works, with cellphone apps and Hebrew-language comparisons further down the line and subject to funding.
The venture has so far attracted 1,000 users, mostly scholars and bloggers who have been invited to post initial commentaries for select biblical chapters. Conceived as “a marriage of the wisdom of the sages with the wisdom of the crowds,” according to Waldman, the key will be whether the site gains traction among the wider Jewish public.