As an open source and free software project, the Open Siddur would not be possible at all were it not for the in-kind contributions of its volunteer developers, transcribers, translators, commentators, artists, designers, and promoters. We look forward to thanking you. Please join our community and contribute to the Open Siddur by transcribing or translating texts, researching, providing art and comments, sharing ideas, or if you have technical skills, helping us build the Open Siddur web application. If you would like to support the Open Siddur Project financially, tax free donations can be made via a donation page sponsored by Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity, a 501(3)c non-profit providing the Open Siddur with fiscal sponsorship.
The Open Siddur Project is co-directed by Aharon Varady (founder) and Efraim Feinstein (lead developer). We would like to thank the following for their work to date on bringing this project to life.
Text Contributors:
Anonymous
Rabbi Daniel Brenner (Kaddish)
John Bruno Hare of the Internet Sacred Texts Archive (Singer Siddur, raw JPS 1917 OCR)
Harry Aizenstadt and Lisa Rubins (Family of Rabbi Jacob Freedman, z”l)
Christopher Kimball and the J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research (Westminster Leningrad Codex)
Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (Siddur Tehillat HaShem)
Gabriel Wasserman
Hebrew WikiSource
Text Transcribers:
Efraim Feinstein (aka, the Ḥakham–and Lead Developer)
Eve Feinstein
Marc Kasten
Gershon Marx
Aharon Varady (aka, the Hierophant–and Chief Siddur Wrangler)
Code Monkeys:
Ze’ev Clementson
Ilan Cohen
Azriel Fasten (aka, the Shadkhan)
Raphael Finkel
Efraim Feinstein
Project Researchers
Efraim Feinstein
Jonah Rank
Aharon Varady
Organizational Advisers and Boosters:
Ariel Beery and Aharon Horwitz (PresenTense Institute)
Dan Brown (e-Jewish Philanthropy)
Bob Goldfarb (Center for Jewish Culture & Creativity)
Joel Katz (Religion and State in Israel)
Devorah Priess, Ed.D.
Daniel Sieradski and Sarah Chandler (Jewschool, Jew-it-Yourself)
J.T. Waldman (Tagged TaNaKh, Jewish Publication Society Special Projects)
Avi Warshavsky (CET)
Supporting Infrastructure:
eXist-db, a native XML database
MediaWiki
Saxon by Saxonica
Subversion, a version control system and project of the Apache Software Foundation
Text Encoding Initiative
WordPress
Licensing & Standards Framework:
Creative Commons
Free Software Foundation
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)
Wikimedia Foundation
Server Hosts:
Josh Rosenberg (our wiki’s host and server admin)
VAserv (our VPS provider)
Google Code (our code repository)
Google Groups (our listserve hosts)
Partners:
Ben Varadi and Justin Levy (Tulane Center for Intellectual Property Law and Culture, copyright research)
Open Scriptures (technology sharing)
Eileen Levinson (Haggadot, technology sharing)
Usability Testing:
Elana Messer
Inspiration:
Rabbi Jacob Freedman, z”l, and his unpublished Polychrome Historical Prayerbook
Joe Rosenstein’s Siddur Eit Ratzon
Project Gutenberg
In the summer of 2009, the Open Siddur was one of sixteen innovative projects chosen for participation in the PresenTense Institute 2009 Summer Workshop for Jewish social entrepreneurship in Jerusalem. Modest travel grants to attend the workshop were provided by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and the Jewish Publication Society. Aharon Varady was selected as the Rena and Josh Kopelman Chair of Online Community Organizing, an honor presented by the Kopelman Foundation, and the Open Siddur is grateful for their sponsorship of his work at PresenTense. We also deeply appreciate the participation and interest of the PresenTense staff in the public launch of Open Siddur: Ariel Beery, Aharon Horwitz, Brachie Sprung, Shai Davis, and Brian Blumenthal. Their skill building advice, ideas, and ability to connect us with helpful collaborators was extremely useful and made for a productive summer. We would also like to thank the advice and support provided at that time by J.T. Waldman and Avi Warshavsky (Head of Israel’s Center for Educational Technology Department of Humanities).
In January 2010, Aharon Varady presented the Open Siddur Project at Limmud NY. Thank you to the staff and volunteers of Limmud NY for supporting this and other innovative projects.
