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Marcus Weisberg or Weissberger or Veiszberger… (d. 1880)

Some people ask me about my last name. “Hey Aharon, where does your last name come from?” etc. It’s a question I’ve long wanted to know myself. I know Varady is a common Hungarian last name and I knew that it was probably something else before it became Varady (or Varadi as some living relatives still spell it). . . . → Continue reading: Marcus Weisberg or Weissberger or Veiszberger… (d. 1880)

Reszi Sunshine (1885-1970)

1913, Regina and Coleman

I look for them in the past and I find their remains, enough to resemble a person, even someone whose passions I can identify more than vaguely with my imagination. Again, I have this feeling that the historical researcher is more than part necromancer. Not only do we create . . . → Continue reading: Reszi Sunshine (1885-1970)

Community Identification

Some self-reflection on community identity spurred by a conversation on the Pew Survey (2013). . . . → Continue reading: Community Identification

Happy Birthday Philip K. Dick

“A human being without the proper empathy or feeling is the same as an android built so as to lack it, either by design or mistake. We mean, basically, someone who does not care about the fate which his fellow living creatures fall victim to; he stands detached, a spectator, acting out by his . . . → Continue reading: Happy Birthday Philip K. Dick

Hacking the Atahualpa Theme for Showing Multiple Author Bylines and Bios with the Co-Authors Plus Plug-In in WordPress

For posts with multiple contributors in Wordpress, showing multiple names in the byline requires some hacking. One must install the Co-Authors Plus plug-in and then edit the code for their particular Wordpress theme. Documentation written by Daniel Bachuber, the author of the Co-Authors Plus plugin is located here. For those using the Atahualpa theme in Wordpress, documentation is uneven, incomplete, and hard to come by. Hopefully, this post will provide more comprehensive guidance and save someone the time I spent I trying to figure this out. You can see an example of my solution in effect at the Open Siddur Project — check out the byline and multiple-author bios in this post. (Please share with me any improvements you might have to what I’ve written below.) . . . → Continue reading: Hacking the Atahualpa Theme for Showing Multiple Author Bylines and Bios with the Co-Authors Plus Plug-In in WordPress

Mechon Hadar is Open

From 2009-2010, I was a fellow of Yeshivat Hadar in the pilot year of its first year-long program of study. A couple months ago, Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, Dean of Students at Yeshivat Hadar, asked me if I would consider reviewing Mechon Hadar’s new website. At the Hadar reunion earlier this year, Jason had provided a . . . → Continue reading: Mechon Hadar is Open

Pinḥas Haiku Iterations

Haikus offered in commentary to Parashat Pinḥas 2011-2014, originally for Avi Strausberg’s Torah Haiku project. . . . → Continue reading: Pinḥas Haiku Iterations

SHARE WHAT YOU LOVE ♡ A Decision Tree for Choosing Free-Culture Compatible Open Content Licenses for Cultural & Technological Work

Since we all live under the current terms of each of our respective nation’s copyright laws, simply making something available or accessible over the Internet doesn’t make it free under copyright for others to use and improve upon. That’s why open content licenses exist: to abrogate the restrictions imposed by copyright law, and it’s why we need to use them. . . . → Continue reading: SHARE WHAT YOU LOVE ♡ A Decision Tree for Choosing Free-Culture Compatible Open Content Licenses for Cultural & Technological Work

Teach me your Open Source Torah, on one foot

American Jewish World Service does important work, so when a site they built for educators and learners to access Jewish sourcetexts on social justice and other important activities disappeared overnight due to what appeared to be a domain registration lapse, I was motivated to write an essay on how organizations can appreciate their websites as more than “proprietary and Copyrighted marketing assets to better leverage their brand.” eJewishPhilanthropy, a well-read blog popular among Jewish professionals published it this morning. Here’s a snippet: . . . → Continue reading: Teach me your Open Source Torah, on one foot

Making oneself into a Maqom Hefker (an ownerless place): On the Economy of Sharing Torah, Dimus Parrhesia (freely and openly)

Last year, I was interviewed by Alan Jacobs for the Atlantic Magazine on the potential and promise of an open source Judaism. This year I was privileged to write an essay for the Sova Project, a project that is considering the structures and processes of a sustainable society through the lens of biblical, prophetic, and rabbinic Jewish values and practices. In the essay I try to pose many of the same concerns from the perspective of community professionals: scholars, artists, and educators: “Those of us who make a living as crafters, educators, and servants of the Jewish community: how do we feel about sharing our work? I mean, really sharing? When, in working with Torah, I create a lesson plan or feel like I have some brilliant insight or analysis or make a translation, how do I give it, release it to the world at large so that my work can spread through adoption, adaptation, redistribution (and attribution)? Further, what are my anxieties and vulnerabilities in sharing my Torah? What honestly are my desires, aspirations, and needs? How, through my method of sharing, can I satisfy and reconcile these concerns?” In wrestling with these questions, I wanted to bring attention to an important orientation that guided Talmudic discourse in Torah — that of dimus parrhesia, a Greek term for a cultivated attitude towards sharing ideas, freely and openly. . . . → Continue reading: Making oneself into a Maqom Hefker (an ownerless place): On the Economy of Sharing Torah, Dimus Parrhesia (freely and openly)