At Sefaria, we’re always seeking new ways to support and empower those who spread Torah to learners everywhere — educators like you, who draw on our resources to carry out your vital work.
With this in mind, we’ve redesigned our educator newsletter in a way we hope will better serve your needs. From now on, you’ll get a monthly edition of Sefaria for Educators that highlights resources for specific types of classes and showcases features or product updates that may enhance your teaching.
Most importantly, we aim to spotlight how you, the Sefaria educator community, are integrating Sefaria into your teaching. By exchanging innovative and effective strategies, we can cultivate a collaborative community focused on advancing the use of educational technology in Jewish studies classrooms.
I and everyone on the Sefaria Learning Team would love to hear your thoughts — please share your feedback with us! Plus, if you know an educator whose creative use of Sefaria should be highlighted in a future email, let us know so we can celebrate their work and inspire others.
Thank you for being a part of the Sefaria educator community.
Happy learning,
Sara Wolkenfeld
Chief Learning Officer
Educator Spotlight
Shifra Elman Widens the Lens
- Who? Shifra Elman, Dean of Jewish Studies at The Kehillah School in Palo Alto, CA
- How? In our introductory 9th grade class, we emphasize the many Torah translations available on Sefaria. This helps students who don’t know Hebrew avoid over-reliance on a single definition, allowing for an appreciation of the text's rich polyvalence, a cornerstone of traditional Jewish learning.
- Shifra's Top Tip: Topic pages are a valuable starting point for my students, many of whom are unfamiliar with key biblical figures. For example, when I’m teaching a course focused on feminist biblical criticism, students who are tasked with analyzing a female character from the latter chapters of Bereshit can use topic pages as a foundational entry point. Even if they’re not sure where to begin, seeing the base text alongside a variety of commentaries and other resources from the Jewish bookshelf helps guide their research.
Did you now?
About this Text: Help students get in the habit of learning about new texts by showing them this useful feature. To start, click any passage of text to open the Resource Panel. Under the heading About This Text, you can learn where, when, and by whom it was written, as well as what category of book it is and (sometimes) a little background information on why it was written or the author’s point of view. Learn more
Teaching Tanakh: Dr. Everett Fox
Teaching about the linguistic features of the Tanakh? You might want to take a look at Dr. Everett Fox’s work. A scholar and translator of the Hebrew Bible, his Torah translation and essays on the main themes of the Five Books of Moses are focused on the rhetorical structure and consistency of the Tanakh.
The great news? Both Dr. Fox's collected essays and his translations of Torah and the Early Prophets are available in the library! To start reading the essays, visit the direct link to the Table of Contents.
Or, if you’re reading a biblical text with Dr. Fox’s translation, click any passage to open the Resource Panel, scroll down to Related Texts, and click to see a link to the collected essays.
Teaching Talmud: Jastrow’s Dictionary
Having this extensive resource on hand means students can study Talmud, Targumim, and midrashic literature independently with the original text! The dictionary helps learners parse meanings and connections in potentially tricky texts.
There are three ways to access the dictionary on Sefaria. First, click on a passage of Talmud to open the Resource Panel. Then, use one of three options to see the definition:
On the Jewish Calendar
Looking for Tu Bishvat resources? Take a look at topic pages like Tu Bishvat, Trees, and Fruit, where you’ll find notable sources from across the library, as well as this collection of Tu Bishvat Seders we’ve put together, which you can use as they are or take as inspiration for your own seder.
Sefaria Tools to Know
Seamlessly add and format any source from the library to a Google doc with a single click. Now including verse numbers!
Create unique source sheets by compiling sources from Sefaria’s library alongside comments, images, and videos.