=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3160/short8
|storemode=property
|title=Talmud Yerushalmi Digital Critical Edition
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3160/short8.pdf
|volume=Vol-3160
|authors=Menachem Katz,Hillel Gershuni,Yaron Bar
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ircdl/KatzGB22
}}
==Talmud Yerushalmi Digital Critical Edition==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3160/short8.pdf
Talmud Yerushalmi Digital Critical Edition
Menachem Katz, 1 Hillel Gershuni2 and Yaron Bar 3
1
University of Haifa, Abba Hushi 199, Haifa, 3498838, Israel
2
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
3
Ramat Gan, Israel
Abstract
This paper presents our project, The Jerusalem Talmud Digital Critical Edition. The edition
consists of a reconstruction of the original Talmudic text, along with direct and indirect textual
witnesses – mostly of European origin, complete with a bibliography and a short commentary.
This is the first full digital critical edition of any Talmudic text; the existing digital editions in
this field to date are either not critical or incomplete, and the critical editions are not digital.
Keywords 1
Digital Editions, Digital Humanities, Digital Libraries, Jewish Studies, Jerusalem Talmud
1. Introduction
This paper introduces our new digital critical edition of the Jerusalem Talmud (The Talmud
Yerushalmi), presenting its necessity, features, and significance in the realm of Talmudic editions.
Further, the paper offers a framework for considering the edition as a digital library of the materials it
comprises.
2. The Jerusalem Talmud: Extant Textual Witnesses
The Jerusalem Talmud is a major work comprising the dicta and stories of the Jewish sages in
Palestine from approximately 3rd–4th Centuries CE. This compilation was not awarded the intensive
study and commentary of its Babylonian counterpart (Talmud Bavli), and the text we have today is full
of scribal errors and omissions.
Since the Jerusalem Talmud was not nearly as popular as the Babylonian Talmud, there are
relatively few textual witnesses of this work. The majority of the text is reflected in a single
manuscript – the famous MS Leiden. This manuscript was written in Italy 1289, and is the basis for
the Venice print of 1523. Another significant manuscript is the Italian Vatican 133, which contains
approximately one quarter of the entire Jerusalem Talmud (order Zeraim and tractate Sotah), and is
considered one of the most corrupted manuscripts of Talmudic literature, although it does contain
many authentic readings. Other manuscripts include significantly smaller portions of the Talmud: The
Spanish MS Escorial of tractate Neziqin; a few manuscripts (and an early print) of tractate Sheqalim,
and various fragments from the Cairo Genizah and the European Genizah, which were used as book
bindings for European manuscripts.
IRCDL 2022: 18th Italian Research Conference on Digital Libraries, February 24–25, 2022, Padova, Italy
katz55@gmail.com (M. Katz); gershuni@gmail.com (H. Gershuni); bar.yaron2018@gmail.com (Y. Bar)
© 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
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Figure 1: The Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Yevamot: MS Leiden
3. The Jerusalem Talmud: Toward a Critical Edition
Most manuscripts of the Jerusalem Talmud have been published over the years in various formats:
L. Ginzburg (Seride Yerushalmi, 1909) published transliterations of many fragments from the Cairo
Genizah; S. Lieberman and E.S. Rosenthal (1983) published a diplomatic edition of MS Escorial (with
a comparison to MS Leiden and a brief commentary), and an updated edition (by D. Rosenthal, 1998)
added photos and transliterations of fragments from the Italian Genizah, namely from Savona and
Bologna.
The Synopse zum Talmud Yerushalmi by Schäfer and Becker (1991) contains the primary textual
witnesses of the Jerusalem Talmud: MS Leiden, MS Vatican, some European fragments, and first prints.
The Hebrew Academy Edition (2002) is a diplomatic edition based on a careful and precise reading of
MS Leiden, along with crucial corrections from other manuscripts and notations of scribal errors
identified by previous scholars.
In 2012, Y. Sussmann published his Thesaurus of Talmudic Manuscripts, which cataloged, inter
alia, all known manuscripts of the Jerusalem Talmud at the time. Additions to the catalog were made
by the FJMS team, and in 2020, Sussmann published a new comprehensive edition of all known
Genizah fragments of the Jerusalem Talmud (Ginze HaYerushalmi; regarding the edition, its
importance, and shortcomings, see: Cherlow, 2021).
High-resolution images of the Leiden and Vatican manuscripts are available on the library websites,
and high-resolution images (along with transliteration) of the Cairo Genizah fragments are available on
the Cairo Genizah Project, under the FJMS Portal. Some scanned versions of the European fragments
can be found in the National Library of Israel’s Ktiv Project (some in medium quality, and some can
only be viewed in the library).
The information is thus scattered across various editions and locations. Moreover, no complete
critical edition exists for the majority of the Jerusalem Talmud. The first edition to include all the
primary features of a desired critical edition is probably Katz's edition of Yerushalmi Qiddushin (2016),
based on the MS Leiden text, including the necessary corrections and synopses of the textual witnesses,
as well as parallels and citation apparatuses, and a short commentary on the text.
The Jerusalem Talmud Tractate Qiddushin was a printed edition; this fact demanded compromises
and difficult choices, which the editor of a digital edition would be spared. For example, the editor of
the printed edition had to decide whether to present the edition as a continuous text, or divided into
Sugyot (free-standing sections of Talmudic text); the synopsis is in the appendix instead of adjacent to
the text; the parallels and citations were printed as abbreviations or as references; images of the
manuscripts could not be included; and so on.
Our Jerusalem Talmud Digital Critical Edition was created as a response to these needs, and offers
an edition that suits the needs of the digital world, without compromising scientific value.
4. The Jerusalem Talmud Digital Critical Edition
4.1. The Project
Our project aims to create a full critical edition of the Jerusalem Talmud. Our first undertaking is
tractate Yevamot, a project which received a grant from the Israel Science Foundation (1717/19). This
edition features an amended base text along with a full and flexible synopsis, including all the required
apparatuses: parallels in Rabbinic literature, citations in medieval literature, bibliography, and a brief
commentary.
The edition is based on an exact transcription of MS Leiden, and of the Venice Print in sections in
which the MS Leiden text is missing. The project includes the texts of all other direct textual witnesses
(in tractate Yevamot: fragments from Munich and Darmstadt). The transcriptions were created
manually, with the assistance of previous editions of the manuscripts and first prints (notably Schäfer-
Becker's Synopse zum Talmud Yerushalmi, the Academy of the Hebrew Language edition, and
Sussmans' Ginze HaYerushalmi), complete with corrections based on thorough review of high-quality
images of the manuscripts. Unfortunately, the ability to use OCR to read Hebrew or Aramaic
manuscripts is not yet sufficiently developed. When textual manuscript-based projects such as Stoekl
et al.'s Sofer Mahir and Tikoun Sofrim will reach a more mature stage, the extension of the edition to
the entire Talmud will be far easier to achieve.
Indirect witnesses collected from hundreds of later works are also included in this project. High
resolution images of the direct textual witnesses are incorporated into the edition. The base text is
amended, corrected, and clearly marked, with notes explaining each deviation from the primary text.
The text is corrected by the editors (Menachem Katz and Hillel Gershuni) based on previous research,
commentaries, and extant direct and indirect textual witnesses.
These features define the work as a critical edition. The editors play an important role in selecting
and correcting the text. This edition is the first of its kind on two levels: it is the first critical edition of
the Jerusalem Talmud (apart from the Tractate Qiddushin edition, which can be viewed as the first stage
of the edition's development), as well as the first full critical digital edition of any Talmudic work.
4.2. The Structure, User Interface, and Functions of the Edition
4.2.1. The Text
The user interface includes a simple but powerful structure. Each tractate is divided into chapters
and Halakhot, which provide the basic viewing unit. Due to the inconsistency between various editions
and prints of the Jerusalem Talmud regarding the division of Halakhot, we based our edition on the
division of the Mishnah, which is the base text of the Jerusalem Talmud.
Each Halakhah is preceded by the Mishnah text, based on MS Kaufman. MS Leiden also contains
the Mishnah text, but the Mishnah was not included in the original Talmudic texts, and was only added
at a later stage from manuscripts of the Mishnah; we decided to include a more accurate version of the
Mishnah text.
The Talmudic text follows the Mishnah. The editors divided the text into sections and short lines,
complete with full punctuation. The user can choose to view a 'clean' text of the Talmud without these
divisions, and/or without punctuation.
The edition for tractate Yevamot consists of 41,060 words in 4,145 lines (an average of 10 words
for each line). In each line, the user can choose to view the synopsis of all direct and indirect textual
witnesses. In later stages, the user will be able to filter and arrange the synopsis by types of textual
witnesses, and highlight different types of changes.
The text is accompanied by five apparatuses:
1. Parallels in Rabbinic literature, including Tannaitic sources cited by the Talmud, and
parallel Sugyot in the Talmuds and in Midrashic literature.
2. Citations in medieval literature (Rishonim).
The relevant data from these first two apparatuses is also presented in the synopsis.
3. Editorial notes explaining deviations from the main manuscript text and adding suggested
readings.
4. Bibliographical notes, referring to relevant research literature.
5. Explanatory notes.
The apparatuses can be viewed in relation to the entire Halakhah, or a specific section, or a specific
line. Clicking on a specific note highlights the relevant text in the Talmud, and the user can click
again to view a pop-up pane with the full text of the note.
Figure 2: The Jerusalem Talmud Digital Critical Edition, TalmudYerushalmi.com: Each apparatus can
be expanded to show a specific section or line.
Figure 3: The Synopsis for a specific line: direct textual witnesses (black), indirect citations in medieval
literature (purple), and parallels in Talmudic literature (red).
The text can be exported as a TEI encoded file. The user can download an XML file of each
Halakhah, which can then be used and interpreted as needed.
4.2.2. Images
This edition will be accompanied by images of the manuscripts; specifically, for tractate Yevamot,
MS Leiden and the fragments from Munich and Darmstadt. The user will be able to browse the images
of the manuscript by clicking on a specific line and presenting the image in which the text appears. This
enables users to check the transcriptions themselves, and understand the peculiarities of the text.
Figure 4: The word ( עץtree) in the Munich fragment of Jerusalem Talmud tractate Yevamot (UB
München, 2° Cod.ms. 17, fol. Iir; end of the third line). The lengthened shape of the letter ץmay have
been designed not only to fill the line, but also to resemble the shape of a tree.
The images module is yet to be developed; the proposed concept currently underway provides the
user with the option of presenting the images beside the text, or showing the image of a specific
manuscript in a pop-up window.
A noteworthy model is the one applied by the Mahadura website, under the Friedberg Jewish
Manuscripts Society portal (https://fjms.genizah.org/), in which the first two authors of this paper were
involved. This website was designed to help editors create a digital edition which include images and
texts: Mahadura offers tools that can help editors transcribe the text and present it alongside the image
of the manuscript, creating a link between each word in the image and the transcription. Users can hover
the cursor over one word in the image, and the corresponding word in the transcription becomes
highlighted, and vice versa.
Figure 5: Mahadura: transcription alongside the image of the manuscript, in a project created by
one of the site's users.
Mahadura is a highly sophisticated tool, but it lacks the crucial features of a classical Rabbinic
critical edition, such as apparatuses for parallels, citations, and explanatory notes. For this reason, we
decided against using it in the preparation of the new Digital Edition of the Jerusalem Talmud project.
Nevertheless, the model of Mahadura will be considered while constructing the image module of the
edition, albeit with less complex features. Showing an image side by side with each line of the
transcription satisfies the needs of most users, and prevents unnecessary complexity, which is also
resource-consuming. Several digital editions may be considered as a model for presenting images
alongside a text, such as the Book of Ben Sira digital edition (www.bensira.org).
5. The Jerusalem Talmud Digital Critical Edition as a Digital Library
The Jerusalem Talmud Digital Critical Edition was designed and constructed as a critical edition:
focusing on one work, and using the human mind to reconstruct its original text. However, this edition
can also serve as a digital library of information relevant to the Jerusalem Talmud. It is noteworthy that
most direct and indirect textual witnesses of this Talmud are European, primarily from Italy: The first
print is from Venice; the two major manuscripts are Italian; and a large portion of the fragments come
from the European Genizah. The indirect textual witnesses are also most often European in origin.
Since this edition includes not only the texts, but also images of these manuscripts, the edition can
also be used as a digital library. This creates accessibility not only for scholars and academics, but also
for anyone who cherishes the Jewish legacy of manuscript copying and the study of texts, enabling
them to see the manuscripts with their own eyes. Here we applied a similar philosophy to the one we
utilized in the FJMS Bavli Variants site, which has a similar character of a digital library or museum,
presenting full texts and images of the Babylonian Talmud manuscripts and first prints.
We would like to propose and encourage the use of this model in other editions in humanities
research. Digital editions can also serve as digital libraries; instead of avoiding this important aspect of
the digital edition, we believe it should be embraced for its potential. Many digital editions already
include this facet, such as the abovementioned Book of Ben Sira digital edition. In our view, this facet
should be treated as an integral part of a digital edition.
6. Acknowledgements
The Talmud Yerushalmi Digital Critical Edition (tractate Yevamot) is supported by the Israeli
Science Foundation, Grant no. 1717/19.
7. References
[1] J. Van Zundert, P. Boot, The Digital Edition 2.0 and the Digital Library: Services, not Resources,
Bibliothek and Wissenschaft, 44 (2012): 141-152.
[2] E. Cherlow, Lo Seridim Bilvad: Ginze HaYerushalmi, Zion 86 (2021), 631-660 [Hebrew].
[3] G. Franzini, M. Terras, S. Mahony, A Catalogue of Digital Editions, in: Matthew James Driscoll
and Elena Pierazzo (Eds.), Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices (2016): 161-182.
[4] K. M. Price, Electronic Scholarly Editions, in: Susan Schreibman and Ray Siemens (Eds.), A
Companion to Digital Literary Studies (2008), Oxford: Blackwell. URL:
http://www.whitmanarchive.org/about/articles/anc.00267.html. Accessed 23.1.22.
[5] E. Pierazzo, Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories, Models and Methods, 2014.
[6] Chaim Milikowsky, "Scholarly Editions of Three Rabbinic Texts – One Critical and Two Digital",
in: Peter Boot, et al. (Eds.), Advances in Digital Scholarly Editing (Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2017),
137-146.
[7] M. Katz, A. Shmeltzer, H. Gershuni, S. Preis, The Hachi Garsinan Project as a Critical Edition of
the Talmud Bavli, September 2017, https://fjms.genizah.org, https://bit.ly/3vXiP9T. Accessed
23.1.22.
[8] A. Thromas, 12 Digital Resources of the Rabbinic Literature: Radical Change with a Click of the
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[9] E.S. Rosenthal, S. Lieberman, Talmud Yerushalmi Neziqin, 3rd print with fragments from the
Italian Genizah and introductions by D. Rosenthal, Jerusalem, 2008.
[10] M. Katz, Jerusalem Talmud Tractate Qiddushin: Critical Edition and a Short Explanation,
Jerusalem 2015.
[11] Talmud Yerushalmi: According to Ms. Or. 4720 (Scal. 3) of the Leiden University Library with
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Hebrew Language, Jerusalem 2005.
[12] P. Schäfer and H. J. Becker, Synopse zum Talmud Yerushalmi, Tübingen 1991-2001.
[13] Y. Sussman, Thesaurus of Talmudic Manuscripts, Jerusalem 2012 (Friedberg updates, edited by
M. Katz, September 2017, https://fjms.genizah.org).
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[15] Ts. Juflik, M. Lavee, D. Stoekl Ben Ezra, V. Raziel-Kretzmer, A. Ohali, A. Wecker, U. Schor,
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[16] D. Stoekl Ben Ezra, Sofer Mahir: Opening Up Rabbinic Manuscripts Towards Scholarly Editions.
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[17] The Book of Ben Sira website. URL: https://www.bensira.org/. Accessed 23.1.22.
[18] National Library, Israel, Ktiv Project. URL: https://web.nli.org.il/sites/nlis/en/manuscript.
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[19] Y. Sussman, Yerushalmi Medieval Testimonies Project. URL:
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[21] Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society (FJMS) Genizah site and Bavli Variants site (Hachi
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