This document summarizes a Zoom presentation by Stephanie Gross on the Yeshiva Academic Institutional Repository (YAIR) project at Yeshiva University. The project involved digitizing and making openly accessible the 1950 Ph.D. dissertation of Rabbi Dr. Mayer Herskovics titled "Halakhah and Agadah in Onkelos". Staff collaborated digitally over the summer of 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. The presentation provided an overview of YAIR, details of the Herskovics dissertation project, and resources and tools discussed for digital scholarship and collaboration.
1. Sponsors: Yeshiva University
Libraries and AJL-NYMA
YAIR (Yeshiva Academic Institutional
Repository) : Retrospective Theses
& Dissertations (RTDs)
Collaboration under Covid
In Memory of Rabbi Dr. Mayer
Herskovics, zl (YU50B), author of
HALAKAH AND AGADAH IN
ONKELOS Ph.D. dissertation Revel
1950.
Thursday, October 15th
@1 PM EDT
ZOOM
Presenter:
Stephanie L. Gross, Librarian
Electronic Reserves & Scholarly
Communication
3. Todays program
Welcome Note on PDE
What is YAIR?
Focus on 5-6 slides
Rest: lightening talks
Biography:
Human interest
story in pictures
Productivity tools
& websites
Q&A
18. Jewish Studies
Commons (Digital
Commons)
Subject Repository vs. Institutional Repository
Digital Commons vs. DSpace vs. Islandora
Consortia vs. OpenSource platform without
Vs. STEM arXiv
30. A trip to the basement stacks to
retrieve the dissertation ..
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND
39. Release form
Open Access (OA): Creative Commons
Attributions 3.0:
Non-Commercial
No-Derivs
YU Distribution Rights
Alternatives:
Restricted: Embargo 2 years
Opt-Out: No visibility to the public
41. Dissertation on Onkelos, YU Revel, 1950
Dissertation in memory of authors mother, who perished in the Shoah
42. Abstract of
the
dissertation
Onkelos, a descendant of many Roman Officials, became a righteous convert to Judaism.
Living in the early Mishnaic period, he became a close student of the famous Tannaim R.
Eliezer ben Hurkanus and R. Joshua ben Hananiah. He became famous for his translation
of the Old Testament into Aramaic, the common language of Jews at that time. It
remains as the standard translation and is continuously studied today. It was meant to
be a translation. This thesis shows how the Targum Onkelos is more than just that. Very
often halakhic rulings can be derived by the choice of words or phrases Onkelos used. It
also serves at times a commentary by added phrases or Midrashic quotations given. The
author takes selected passages from the Torah with the Targum and examines their
content.
55. Prof. Herskovics remembered in
2006 YU publication (R. Carmy)
Who is wise? He who learns
from all human beings.[If we
remembered this], then you,
who probably hadnt heard of
Dr. Meir Herskovics until a few
minutes ago, would become a
link in his continuing legacy.
59. Mayer Herskovics, typing scholarly works on manual typewriter
One more thing:
I have very raw Word files of the Onkelos work my father did in the last year of his life.
Breishit and a bit of Shmot.
I believe that my father, who was very meticulous and edited and proofread his works many
times before submitting them for publication, would NOT want this material made public. -GG
69. IAJGS: Intl Assoc.
of Jewish Gen.
Societies
The International Association of Jewish Genealogical
Societies (IAJGS) is an independent non-profit umbrella
organization coordinating the activities and annual
conference of nearly 90 national and local Jewish
Genealogical Societies (JGS) around the world.
71. ABBYY FineReader 15 OCR
software for Hebrew
Interfaces with Adobe
Acrobat
Import PDF file, renders
searchable Hebrew text
Resave project as PDF
80. Q&A: Topics
for
discussion /
future
workshops
Wikipedia hackathons
Dublin Core
Institutional Repositories (IR)
LibGuides and Quick Reference wikis
Presentation tools & best practices
Zoom vs. other webinar platforms?
Online teaching (DL listservs, etc.)
Remote reference / chat (H3lp), Questionpoint
Web compliance: copyright, ADA WCAG
Personal information on the web: Confidentiality,
safety
81. This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC
Leave your
comfort zone