6c+Jeff+Kuperman

As a teacher in an Orthodox school, I have to be choosy in which websites I share with my students. This can be frustrating, and requires me to double-check websites that I personally use routinely, to make sure that they contain nothing that will get me in trouble with the Doctrine Police. (To be honest, as a rabbi I can get away with more than the Secular Studies teachers can, but still…) I need to see whether the website reflects a philosophy which in inimical to that of the school. (Biblical Criticism comes to mind, as well as anti-Zionism.) Personally, I believe in free inquiry. I want my students not to be afraid to use sources that may challenge or contradict their beliefs. But until they are at that stage, I must train them. Examples: The Bible Lexicon and the Blue Letter Bible have excellent advanced resources for the student of the Hebrew Bible, including links to Strong’s Concordance and relevant passages from the grammatical work of Gesenius. But they are both Christian sites, and the student needs to be guided through their use. (At the very least, they shouldn’t freak out if they see a cross on the page!) The Bible Lexicon often writes out the Tetragrammaton in English transliteration, and the students must be told that this is not acceptable for Orthodox Jews who treat God’s holy name with extreme reverence. They need to know that they shouldn’t use it in papers or say it in class. Yet the site also breaks down the Hebrew verses into word-by-word translations, which is exceedingly helpful for the ninth graders, whose Hebrew skills are weak. And there are no Jewish sites that do this for them. Come-and-Hear was for many years the only online source (albeit incomplete) of the old Soncino translation of the Talmud. It is also an anti-Semitic website masquerading as a site promoting mutual understanding. It was an important resource for those who needed help with translating passages in the Talmud. Students needed to be instructed to make use of the translations without wandering into other parts of the site, or if they did, they must understand what the website was about, and why its arguments are specious. Fortunately, Halakha.com has now replaced Come-and-Hear as the Soncino source. All the indexed sections from the old site are present on halakha.com, and all the tractates that were unavailable are available here as .pdf downloads, although they are not indexed or hyperlinked. When learning about the history of Zionism with my seniors, a crucial chapter is that of religious anti-Zionism. Most of my students are aware that many Chassidic Jews oppose the State of Israel, but few if any have studied the halachic arguments in favor of such a position. Here it is less a question of the websites I send them to, and more of an issue of ensuring that they have the pro-Zionist halachic arguments down-pat before they begin their study. (And wait until they discover which team Samson Raphael Hirsch, one of the patron saints of Modern Orthodoxy, played for.)