Jewish Education? There’s an App for That!

The man sitting on the commuter train focusing intently on his iPhone might be playing Angry Birds. Or he might be studying Talmud, Skyping with a chevruta partner in Israel or even teaching Hebrew school.

“Mobile technologies could help people practice Judaism,” said Barry Schwartz, CEO of Rusty Brick, a West Nyack, N.Y.-based software company that has created more than 30 Jewish mobile apps. “It is the future. Wherever you go — the airport, shul -people are looking stuff up and praying.”

Welcome to Judaism’s digital age.

Mobile technologies are augmenting traditional learning and how people fill their free time, said Rabbi Jack Kalla of Aish HaTorah, which has long been at the forefront of digital Jewish outreach with videos, podcasts and an extensive website. Later this summer, the Orthodox organization will roll out its first mobile app, which will reproduce content from Aish’s website for mobile devices.

“From our perspective, the use of the Internet in trying to reach people who are searching or may not even have started their search in Judaism is really wide open,” he said. “This is where people are, and the Internet itself is the means to reach people today.”

Jewish organizations across the spectrum are taking advantage of developing mobile and digital technologies to reach new people across multiple platforms. And all seem to agree: Get on board or get left behind.

“It’s not going to be the new model; it is the new model,” said Rabbi Simcha Backman, director of Chabad’s Askmoses.com. “This is the new way and we should embrace it. Forward-thinking organizations are doing that.”

Created to reach people who don’t have access to rabbis, Askmoses offers live chats with scholars on its website, Backman said. Earlier this year the site began a text-messaging program. Later this summer, AskMoses will unveil its first mobile app, part of a larger strategy to continue reaching people wherever they are, Backman said.

“Social media is literally a whole new world for Jews and Judaism,” he said. “The options are limitless how we can reach out to people.”

RustyBrick is set to release the ArtScroll Schottenstein Talmud this month in an app for the iPhone and iPad that will allow for instant translations, highlighting specific passages and quickly jumping from one section to another. Pricing has not yet been set, but Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, co-founder of ArtScroll, expects it to be a fraction of the cost of purchasing the entire 73-volume printed set.

“This opens up the whole world of Jewish literature for the past 2,000 years,” Zlotowitz said, putting it “literally at your fingertips.”

While such access may have been available previously in schools, libraries or private collection, the innovation, Schwartz said, is what you can do with the information because of the technology. The information can change based on the user’s location, time of day or preference of Ashkenazi or Sephardi customs, he said.

“Enhancing the text around those criteria is the future of Jewish text learning,” Schwartz said. “When you’re able to actually interact with the words on the page, it’s going to change how people understand what they’re learning.”

With technology advancing at a rapid pace, just what Jewish education will look like in 20 years, or even in five years, is unclear, but the Jewish world appears ready for the challenge.

“All of these things are enabling us to realize our tradition and Judaism in ways that were simply unimaginable a few years ago,” said Backman of Askmoses. “I don’t know where it’s going, [but] it’s going to be phenomenal and in a positive way.”