JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH (5/1/2008) wrote:

Rating: 5 Stars out of 5
Bar-Ilan's Global Jewish Database (Responsa Project): Version 16, on DVD-ROM in Hebrew (menu language only is in English & French as well), produced in Israel by The Responsa Project, Bar-Ilan University, accompanied by a 120-page user's manual in Hebrew or English, distributed abroad by Torah Educational Software (TES - www.jewishsoftware.com), requires Windows 2000/XP/Vista, for ages 12 through adult. Retail $689.95

It isn't often that you can a lot more from a product for a lot less money than it cost originally. One is the latest version of Bar-Ilan University's Global Jewish Database, which was first priced almost $2,000 when it was first issued in 1990. The largest database of its kind, it includes the full text of the Bible and its major commentaries, the Babylonian Talmud with Rashi's commentary and Tosafot, the Jerusalem Talmud, the Rambam's Mishneh Torah, the Shulhan Aruch with commentaries, midrashim, Over 500 books of Responsa (halachic questions and answers by sages over the millennia until contemporary times), and the Talmudic Encyclopedia. Three thousand years of Jewish creativity and more than 150 million words of Jewish law are captured in a single DVD-ROM, making it a perfect purchase for Shavuot or any time of the year. Tens of thousands of copies have been sold since its first appearance, and while the customers were at first mostly libraries and yeshivot, at little more than half the original price, it is now purchased more often by individuals than institutions. Not only do institutions find it increasingly prohibitive to purchase printed volumes, but many of them are out of print and hard to locate. The oldest of the texts were typed into the database by hand instead of being electronically scanned to avoid damaging the fragile pages. But on disk, these classic works can last forever, and texts can be found instantaneously instead of having to spend hours hunting by hand. The new version allows users to display cross references and commentaries on an individual biblical verse; print multiple texts consecutively without page breaks; view texts either according to their historical period or alphabetical order; customize the appearance of the database trees; scroll the database with a mouse wheel; search notes and annotated texts; and print and save text and notes. In addition, if you lack a Hebrew keyboard attached to your computer, you can enter words with a virtual Hebrew keyboard in the program. It is certainly very user friendly. You can view texts in any of dozens of Hebrew fonts and in sizes of up to 72 points so that it's suitable even for the visually disabled. The formidable search engine is very speedy, looking for a single Hebrew word or phrase in a specific work or the entire database collection. It's worth "splurging" on the "Plus" edition to get the Talmudic Encyclopedia. Among the new books in the most recent version are books by the Rambam and Sefer Hasidim.The Responsa collection now contains more than 100,000 questions (compared to a mere 10,000 only two versions ago) dealing with every facet of Jewish law. Extra tools include a digital Jewish/Gregorian calendar that covers the years from 1583 all the way to 2239 in the future (perfect for planning your great-great-grandchildren's bar and bat mitzvas). Not only can you find details about a specific lunar and solar year, but also the Shabbat and holiday portions. If you want to find Hebrew words or verses whose numerical value equals that of your name or any other word, these are automatically displayed in a matter of seconds in the disk's Gematriya section. To my astonishment, when I entered the Hebrew names of my eldest child and that of my husband's, out popped my own Hebrew name as one of the alternatives!