Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post (11/1/2000) wrote:
Discover Jerusalem, Its History & People, a CD-ROM in English, by Torah
Educational Software (www.jewishsoftware.com) and Duchin Studios.

Israel needs all the help it can get when it comes to explaining its cause to the world. The Foreign Ministry
seemed to wake up a bit late when the Aksa uprising broke out on Rosh Hashana and Israel needed to counter pro-Palestinian
propaganda; in addition, there were ­ and still are ­ too few government spokesmen blessed with fluent English, a persuasive manner
and a keen understanding of the foreign media.

Torah Educational Software, a Jerusalem-based developer and distributor of high-quality Jewish software for children and adults,
saw the crying need some time ago for better information about the Israeli case for a united Jerusalem.

TES president Emanuel Fishman approached Nachum Duchin, a former US video filmmaker now living in Beit Shemesh who has
worked for ABC TV Good Morning America and other US programs. When I saw that every CD-ROM or video on Jerusalem was
apologetic for our Jewish presence in Jerusalem, I decided to make a disk about the Old City that speaks for us, without insulting
anybody else, says Fishman.

They then converted the video of several hours length into an hour-long CD-ROM, losing a bit of resolution on the screen for the
sake of the material and without cutting any of the narration.

Why make a disk for a personal computer when you have a video cassette?
Fishman explains that many in the haredi audience are forbidden by their rabbis to have a TV screen and video cassette recorder at home,
but a computer and CD-ROM disk drive are regarded as kosher.

Just insert the disk into your drive, and the film immediately comes up without installation. Highly professional, the film offers magnificent
birds-eye-view scenes and modern editing techniques. Although the name of the disk refers to Jerusalem, the disk focuses on the
Old City and its environs; Old City is mentioned in red only at the bottom of the cover of the box. The content puts much emphasis on the gates
of the Old City walls, built under the direction of the Ottoman ruler, Suleiman the Magnificent, in the 16th century.

The disk focuses on a varied selection of important people who have been buried on the Mount of Olives opposite the Golden Gate:
Rabbi Ovadia Bartenura (the Italian-born sage who wrote a commentary on the Mishna); chief rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook,
Prime Minister Menachem Begin, chief rabbi Shlomo Goren. Oscar Schindler, the Righteous Gentile who saved so many Jews from death
during the Holocaust and was buried in a Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion, is also given prominence.

Each of the five is portrayed with narration and a series of historical photographs. The archeological finds, the history of the gates, the bold but
hopeless struggle of the last Jewish residents of the Jewish Quarter to hold it in May 1948, the destruction of synagogues from then until the
Old Citys recapture in 1967 and the quarters subsequent reconstruction since are all depicted with moving scenes and words. But the needs
of the potential audiences sometimes conflict.

There isn¹t a single glimpse of an Arab until the films midpoint ­ and then its only an elderly Moslem praying alone in the El Aksa mosque.
There are a few scenes of the Arab market and tourists in the Moslem Quarter, but the Christian Quarter gets short shrift, with only 22 seconds
dedicated to it.

Thus the disk is for people who dont know much about Israels case for a unified Jerusalem, such as fundamentalist Christians, but have a potential for
giving warm support,­ or for observant Jews who know quite a lot but need to have it reinforced. Duchin appears at the end of the film, saying he hopes
that those who have visited Jerusalem before will regard the program as a souvenir to remember their trip, while those who have never made the trip
will be inspired to do so for the first time.

Some Christians might be offended by the minimal material about their holy sites; haredim would have objected to any mention of Jesus, and his name is
missing from the narrative). On the other hand, viewers who have blind sympathy solely for the Palestinian cause would dismiss the disk as a piece
of Jewish propaganda. Fishman explains: We screened this movie a number of times to groups of Christian pilgrims, and they really liked it. They say
they are very interested in hearing the Orthodox Jewish perspective because it helps them understand the roots of their religion.