Author: Rabbi Jason Miller
-
Bomb Gaza Video Game Gets Shot Down from Google AppStore
Google removed from its app store — Google Play — a mobile game that simulates Israeli attacks on Gaza. “Bomb Gaza” lets video game players drop bombs and try to avoid killing civilians. The game got the axe from Google this week after a public backlash, said the Guardian newspaper. PlayFTW developed the game in which…
-
Israel’s Tech Scene Is Having A Banner Week Despite Horrific Israel-Palestinian Violence
By Armin Rosen The conflict between Israel and Hamas has sent shockwaves through the Middle East and the broader world, but the hostilities have left one aspect of life in Israel curiously untouched: the Israeli tech sector. The four weeks since Hamas members kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank — a…
-
Can We Have a Virtual Minyan With Skype?
It was 1998 and I was in my first semester of rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary. My Talmud professor, Rabbi Avram Israel Reisner, approached me after class one day to discuss a project he was working on. As a member of the Conservative Movement’s Law Committee, he was examining the acceptability of a…
-
Benjamin Levy of eduCanon Wins 1776’s Challenge Cup Competition
Benjamin Levy, the Jewish founder of eduCanon was one of four young entrepreneurs who won 1776’s Challenge Cup competition, which brings regulators and disruptors together. Benjamin Levy’s company eduCanon was a winner in the education category. eduCanon is an online learning environment to build and share interactive video lessons. Barely six months after it opened its doors in…
-
Mobile App to Say Tehillim for Israelis
RustyBrick, a Nyack, New York based mobile app developer, is trying to do their part in helping with the ongoing Israel crisis. Today they made their Tehillim app, for iOS and Android, completely free to download for a limited time period. They want to enable Jewish people around the world to pray easily for those…
-
Can a Robot Write a Torah Scroll?
Since 10 July 2014, a KUKA robot has been writing a manuscript of the torah – at the speed of a human scribe – at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. The KR 16-2 is using a quill pen and ink The artistic group “robotlab”, that frequently uses industrial robots for performances in public spaces, deals…
-
Free Software for Nonprofits: Beware!
Buyer Beware: The Hidden Costs of Free Software for Nonprofits By Gretchen Barry Originally published on eJewishPhilanthropy The Appeal and Illusion of Free When it comes to purchasing new software, many organizations do so to increase efficiency, save time, and reduce costs. This is particularly true of nonprofits, which often have limited staff and busy…
-
Will Google’s Driverless Cars Be Kosher to Drive on Shabbat?
From Haaretz.com By Rabbi Yehoshua Looks Could a Google vehicle be kosher for Shabbat? Driverless cars are comparable to Shabbat elevators. Would Jewish law therefore permit using them on the day of rest? In 1950, Rabbis Morris Adler, Jacob Agus and Theodore Friedman from the Conservative movement authored a responsum on the permissibility of riding…