open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
,
free content
Free content, libre content, libre information, or free information is any kind of creative work, such as a work of art, a book, a software program, or any other creative content for which there are very minimal copyright and other legal limi ...
,
digital library
A digital library (also called an online library, an internet library, a digital repository, a library without walls, or a digital collection) is an online database of digital resources that can include text, still images, audio, video, digital ...
of Jewish texts. It was founded in 2011 by former Google project manager Brett Lockspeiser and journalist-author Joshua Foer. Promoted as a "living library of Jewish texts", Sefaria relies partially upon volunteers to add texts and translations. The site provides
cross-reference
The term cross-reference (abbreviation: xref) can refer to either:
* An instance within a document which refers to related information elsewhere in the same document. In both printed and online dictionaries cross-references are important because ...
s and interconnections between various texts. Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Judeo-Arabic
Judeo-Arabic (; ; ) sometimes referred as Sharh, are a group of different ethnolects within the branches of the Arabic language used by jewish communities. Although Jewish use of Arabic, which predates Islam, has been in some ways distinct ...
texts are provided under a
free license
A free license or open license is a license that allows copyrighted work to be reused, modified, and redistributed. These uses are normally prohibited by copyright, patent or other Intellectual property (IP) laws. The term broadly covers '' fr ...
in the original and in translation. The website also provides a tool for creating source sheets.
Sefaria is maintained by an
eponymous
An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''.
Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovati ...
non-profit organization which employs 18 engineers. According to their chief data officer Lev Israel, in 2019, the service received 250,000 unique visitors monthly.
Etymology
The name ''Sefaria'' derives from the words ''sefer'', or "book", and ''sifria'' ("library") in Hebrew.
History
Sefaria was originally founded in 2011 by journalist Joshua Foer and Brett Lockspeiser, a former product manager at
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
. The site's first beta was released in 2012. The company was formally incorporated in 2013, with funding from the Natan Fund, Jonathan and Tamar Koschitzky, and the Jim Joseph Foundation. By 2015, twelve apps used Sefaria's
API
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...
and database. Also in 2015, Sefaria reached a deal to use Urim Publications' translations of the
smartphone
A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...
s running
iOS
Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
and Android, and a complete English translation of
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzchaki (; ; ; 13 July 1105) was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible. He is commonly known by the List of rabbis known by acronyms, Rabbinic acronym Rashi ().
Born in Troyes, Rashi stud ...
's commentary on the
Torah
The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...
. By this point, over a dozen people were part of the website's staff. Sefaria reached a major milestone in 2017, with the release of the William Davidson Talmud. In 2020, the site announced a
pilot program
A pilot experiment, pilot study, pilot test or pilot project is a small-scale preliminary study conducted to evaluate feasibility, duration, cost, adverse events, and improve upon the study design prior to performance of a full-scale research ...
to introduce its model to some secular works such as American constitutional studies.
Lockspeiser was recognized by Forward Magazine's 2019 ''Forward 50'' list for his role in creating Sefaria.
Content
Sefaria offers a library of Jewish texts, including
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
, and Jewish prayers alongside sources in philosophy, mysticism, Jewish law, and newer works. Sefaria's content comes from a variety of sources. Books in the public domain are scanned and processed using
optical character recognition
Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronics, electronic or machine, mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo ...
software, which a team then corrects and formats. Other online sources such as On Your Way are also used. Some publishers have also provided works directly to Sefaria.
Sefaria also produces visualizations of the texts in its corpus, such as illustrating connections between the Tanakh and Talmud.
Translations
In 2021, Sefaria announced a major addition of a complete translation of Ibn Ezra's Torah commentaries provided by H. Norman Strickman and Arthur M. Silver, one of the only resources to have a complete translation of these works in English. A new English translation of the Tanakh was made available in 2022 by Sefaria in collaboration with
Jewish Publication Society
The Jewish Publication Society (JPS), originally known as the Jewish Publication Society of America, is the oldest nonprofit, nondenominational publisher of Jewish works in English. Founded in Philadelphia in 1888, by Reform Rabbi Joseph Krauskop ...
. This version translated gender idiomatically, rather than literally, and notably referred to God in a gender-neutral manner. The addition of this translation received some criticism from some Orthodox Jewish users, with Orthodox rabbis calling to stop using Sefaria completely, although there is continued availability of translations from Orthodox-oriented publishing houses.
Features
Links
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.
Source Sheets
Sefaria's Source Sheet Builder allows users to create a page with source text from Sefaria. Source Sheets may be published online, within Sefaria's ecosystem, and they may also be downloaded as
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...