The History of the Jewish Book (on one foot) AND The Internet as the Ultimate Diaspora

Welcome to the last of a series of five blog posts that pose the question, How did the Rabbis invent Web 2.0 before its time? To understand what’s now happening with online Jewish texts, it’s useful to look back at the history of the Jewish book.

The first Jewish texts were written on parchment scrolls, inscribed by hand. Sometime in Late Antiquity (2nd-4th century C.E.), a transitional technology called the codex emerged, an early hybrid format which consisted of hand-written leaves of parchment bound and sewn between two thin wooden covers. The oldest surviving Jewish codex is the 10th century Aleppo Codex, a Hebrew Bible written by the scribe Aaron Ben Asher in the Galilee. Over the next few centuries, other codexes–hand-written Bibles, haggadahs, and prayer books–appeared throughout Europe and North Africa, each a one-of-a-kind work of art.

Everything changed when Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450. Not surprisingly, the first book printed on this press was the Christian Bible. In the Jewish community, the first printed books were the Babylonian Talmud and the Rabbinic Bible.

We now stand at the threshold of the next phase of the Jewish text: the digital Torah of the 21st century. So much of what is currently emerging was anticipated by those who came before us…

We are beginning to see a new cycle of Jewish creativity and renewal. In the short span of sixty years, Israel has transformed itself into a dynamic incubator of new technology, including web technology. Today there are 1,800 high-tech companies in Israel. Israeli technologists invented instant messaging, and developed wireless computer chips for Intel and advanced firewall security software. Among the American corporations with major operations in Israel are Motorola, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Intel, Google, and IBM, the last of which currently employs 800 people at its Israeli research center.

When asked why Israel has more companies on the Nasdaq than any of the advanced countries of Europe, international venture capitalist David Anthony suggested that “Israelis think outside the box and have a high tolerance for risk. That’s why they are so good at coming up with new technologies.”

It all comes from a history of exile, one of the mothers of invention.

Building upon our acclaimed English translation of the Hebrew Bible, the JPS Tanakh, and drawing from over a century of curated Jewish content, JPS aspires to add to the growing list of web innovators. Next year JPS will launch a beta version of the Tagged Tanakh, a collaborative platform allowing users world-wide to tag, annotate, sort, and associate content with the Hebrew Bible online. (You can read more about the Tagged Tanakh elsewhere on this site.)

We are only at the beginning of the Internet Age, a period of transitional technologies and transformational approaches to textual culture. This new technology holds great potential for the study of the Bible.

For 2,000 years, Jews have wandered in diaspora, constantly iterating new versions of Jewish culture as we’ve adapted and adopted new apps–symbols, rituals, artistic expressions, religious forms–from host communities among whom we’ve lived. Our cherished books have served as our world-wide web, conveying our memories and wisdom throughout our global social network.

In our own time, the Internet has become the ultimate Diaspora–a world without boundaries, without a center, without established authority. Although some would deplore these developments, I believe that history will someday validate them as a promising next phase in the evolution of human knowledge.