Yeshiva University Museum, Printing the Talmud, New York
Printing the Talmud is an online version of Yeshiva University Museum’s groundbreaking exhibition and catalog, Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein. It is an innovative venture by Yeshiva University that uses contemporary technology to preserve rare and ancient versions of the Talmud and make them accessible on the Internet. The website allows visitors to view the manuscripts and printed books in an interactive way. Featured on the site are uncommon manuscripts, early printed volumes (including the originator of the Talmud page layout, the scarce Bomberg Talmud from the sixteenth century), and even the oldest preserved copy of a rabbinic text, which is on a sixth-century floor mosaic at the ancient synagogue at Rehov in Israel. A copy of the Holocaust Survivors’ Talmud from 1948 and video installations of live Talmudic study from five continents are more of the fascinating examples available for viewing on the website. Along with George S. Blumenthal and his Center for Online Judaic Studies and the Jesselson Family, Targum Shlishi helped fund this pioneering initiative. www.printingthetalmud.org

The Schechter Institutes, Inc., The Jo Milgrom Collection: Electronic Educational Archive for Judaism and the Arts, Philadelphia
Designed to enhance a contemporary, pluralistic Jewish curriculum, this website is an electronic archive containing images of four thousand works of art to be utilized by educators, academics, rabbis, and students in Israel and around the world. Targum Shlishi’s funding assisted in the early stages of launching this five-year venture, which is being developed in English and Hebrew. (A Russian-language version is also planned.) The site, which approaches the art from a Jewish academic and educational perspective, also includes artist biographies and essays. The first five hundred works are scheduled to be posted in spring 2008, with thirty-five hundred more works added over the following three years. www.schechter.edu

Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education, Excellence in Teaching Awards, Miami
Since 2005, Targum Shlishi has funded annual awards to recognize the contributions of ten exceptional teachers at day schools, congregational schools, and early childhood programs in the Miami area. The awards program, part of a five-year grant to CAJE, is intended to identify and promote Jewish educational leadership at the local-school level and to encourage and motivate educational innovation and excellence. The teachers who received 2007 awards are: Rabbi Shlomo Ackerman (Samuel Scheck Hillel Community Day School/Ben Lipson Community High School); Rachel Baum (Temple Beth Am Religious School); Denise Bergman (Temple Beth Am Day School); Sue Einhorn (Greenfield Day School); Dr. Ari Kedem (Congregation Bet Breira Schimmel-Binder Religious School); Revital Marotz (Greenstein Early Childhood Development Center at the Dave and Mary Alper JCC); Laura Medina (Temple Beth Am Religious School); Rabbi Mordechai Rosenberg (Kesher, Inc.); Irit Roth (Bet Shira Congregation Early Childhood Center); and Beth Ruck (Rohr Middle School).
www.caje-miami.org

Targum Shlishi Initiative, Jewish Sages of Today book and multimedia project
Who are our heroes? Who inspires us, makes us think, gives us hope? Who is making a difference in the Jewish world today? Jewish Sages of Today is a book and multimedia project currently in development that will profile more than twenty-five individuals working in a range of fields, and all working to improve our world. www.targumshlishi.org/initiatives.html

Jewish Spiritual Literacy, Inc., Jewish Spirituality.net Website, Baltimore
Inspired by The Art of Amazement, his 2003 book describing the unique instructional method he developed to teach Judaism, Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld took a leap into the virtual world by establishing the interactive website www.jewishspirituality.net. His goal is to help Jewish day school and Sunday school teachers obtain curricular and pedagogical training so they too can teach Judaism using his Art of Amazement approach. Free online courses, ready-made lesson plans and student handouts, as well as streaming audio sample classes, are available to educators who register at the website. Targum Shlishi’s support enabled the construction of the website, the first stage of a three-stage project that aims to foster a shift in Jewish spirituality education. Rabbi Seinfeld’s long-term objective is to have ninety schools representing thirty Jewish communities adopt the Art of Amazement method and its full curriculum, which covers all aspects of Jewish spiritual life. www.jsli.org

The Jewish Week, The Conversation: Jewish in America, New York
Organized by The Jewish Week, a New York–based independent community newspaper, in partnership with the Center for Leadership Initiatives, this annual conference assembles sixty-five prominent, diverse American Jews who are established in their fields. The purpose: to discuss the significance of being Jewish in the twenty-first century and speculate on the future of Jewish life in the United States. California-based NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander, Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, and Erika Meitner, a poet and professor at Virginia Tech, were among the participants at the three-day session in 2007, held just outside of Atlanta. www.thejewishweek.com

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