Varda Books opens Judaic Digital Library to public

Dec. 30, 2008 - PRLog -- Varda Books, the leading publisher of digital Judaica, has announced the public availability of its online Judaic Digital Library at no charge (www.JudaicDigitalLibrary.com). Advanced editing functions for research and scholarly study are available for subscribers at a nominal fee.

JDL is a massive collection of outstanding books in the area of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies (a complete list of mostly English-language texts included in the Basic Reference Collection can be found at http://www.publishersrow.com/JDL/Bundle.asp?id=8 ).  The collection has been carefully prepared for computer-assisted reading and research as well as Jewish and Judaic learning.

Although copy/paste, print, bookmarking, annotations, and personalization tools are available only to paid subscribers, the unlimited power search and reading of the Basic Reference Collection is now available to all free of charge.

The scope of the collection is broad and thus should be attractive not only to scholars but also to educators, Rabbis, journalists, librarians, students, and anyone who is looking for reliable, authoritative, easily accessible information on Jewish history, theology, ritual, Torah/Bible, art, sports, and many other topics.

Included in the JDL’s Basic Reference Collection are such titles as:

•         JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh
•         JPS Torah and Bible Commentaries
•         International Critical Commentaries on almost all books of Tanakh
•         Cambridge Bible Commentaries
•         Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Bible Lexicon (Complete and Unabridged)
•         Jewish Encyclopedia, in 13 volumes
•         Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, in 13 volumes
•         The latest JPS edition of Louise Ginzberg's monumental 7 volume Legends of the Jews
•         3-volume Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmail, Pesikta de-Rab Kahane, Tanna Debbe Eliahu, Tractate Taanit, Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer and other collections of Midrashim and ancient sermons.

Most of JDL's Biblical commentaries have been prepared to work interactively with the renowned JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh: clicking on any biblical reference forces the Tanakh to pop up in a separate window with the requested original Hebrew text and the renowned English translation, side-by-side.

Among its many award-winning titles are those authored by such renowned thinkers as:

Cecil Roth, Chouraqui, Solo Baron, Abrahams, Alter, Netanyahu, Bentwich, Frazer, Bauer, Chomsky, Jacobs, Baek, Kaplan, Ash, Yellin, Hartman, Scholem, Twersky, Borowitz, Gillman, Lamm, Maimonides, Baron, Radin, Lea, Luzzatto, Finkelstein, Freehof, Dorff, Modrzejewski, Ibn Gabirol, Henrich Graetz, Simon Dubnow, Judah HaLevy, and others...

To place the JDL search box on your website, go to http://www.publishersrow.com/JDL/JDL.asp and copy the source code.

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Varda Books is a leading publisher of English digital Judaica. Among its published titles are the Judaic Scholar Digital Reference Library, JPS Digital Torah Library, Rabbinic Bookshelf, Hebrew Bible: Text and Commentary, Sepharad: the Essential Library, International Critical Commentaries on the Holy Scriptures: Tanakh, S.R. Driver - U. Cassuto Collection, War against Israel, The Jewish Encyclopedia, and many others.