Vision
The Steinsaltz Archive: Empowering Every Jew with a Vibrant Connection to Our Heritage.
Rabbi Steinsaltz was always interested in the future, the past was only important to him if it was relevant to the future, the Steinsaltz archive is not only a story but also the core of a broad Jewish cultural vision that speaks of making the fundamental texts of Jewish culture accessible to the modern reader, a vision that tells of a global Jewish renaissance and lays the intellectual and cultural foundations for this movement. In our dream, the archive will not only tell the story of Steinsaltz the man and Steinsaltz the organization, but will also start new stories and new connections between Judaism and the modern world.
Activity
Over the course of his life, Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael Steinsaltz repeatedly broke the language and the culture barrier when it came to Jewish education.
The mission of the Steinsaltz Archive Project is to preserve and digitize this Jewish national wealth of cultural, educational and historical treasure.
Physical materials currently available to be sorted and processed include:
- 10,000 hours of audio recordings
- 5,000 hours of video recordings
- 7,000 articles and texts
Time is of the essence to capture many of these aging materials before they deteriorate to the point where preservation becomes impossible.
Preservation, however, is only the first step. Our goal is not just to create a repository of content, but to transform this content into a user-friendly, easily-consumable format that will place an informed Jewish identity within the reach of every member of our nation.
Additionally, in parallel to his prolific production of Jewish educational content, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz served in pivotal Jewish communal roles, intersecting with many of the events and personalities of modern Jewish history. The Steinsaltz Archive Project seeks to preserve existing primary sources such as Rabbi Steinsaltz’s correspondence with well-known figures as well as document eye-opening firsthand accounts of Rabbi Steinsaltz’s extensive activities on behalf of world Jewry.
The Steinsaltz Archive Project will serve:
- Educators searching for direction, inspiration and unique pedagogical content
- Historians seeking a first-person, insider view of the past 80 years of Jewish history
- All curious, thinking Jews yearning to understand their heritage
In his lifetime, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz transformed Jewish education and identity. Through the Steinsaltz Archive, his monumental impact will continue, giving future generations a living, vibrant connection to the heritage of every Jew.
The archive contains articles, manuscripts, book drafts, diaries, correspondence, recordings and lectures of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz from the early 1960s until his death in 2020. Also preserved in the archive are historical items from Rabbi Steinsaltz’s pioneering enterprise with the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications.
The Steinsaltz Archive is a double peek window, it allows us to go back in time and learn about the development of the historical cultural enterprise of the Steinsaltz Institute and on the other hand we get an opportunity to get to know Steinsaltz the man, a colorful and fascinating figure who is at all the important intersections of the State of Israel and the Jewish people in the last seventy years.
This is a wonderful archive, it describes the life journey of one man who changed the face of Jewish society in our time, the archive allows us to grasp the dimensions of the ‘Steinsaltz Revolution’, the enormous difficulties that faced Steinsaltz, the prices he paid and his cultural vision which has not yet been completed.
In the last year, about 250 hours of audio were tagged and transcribed (some of them have already been published in books). The archive team is working on arranging and adjusting the materials in preparation for deposit in the National Library.
This effort is closely aligned with the motto, “Let my people know.” The center’s main responsibilities in the coming year include:
1. The extensive work on translating Rabbi Steinsaltz’s commentary on the Talmud and Mishnah into English, aiming to make these foundational Jewish texts available to a broader audience.
2. Completing the final stages of translating the Talmud into French, further expanding access to these crucial teachings.
3. Working on Hasidic texts, ensuring the teachings of Rabbi Steinsaltz and other Hasidic leaders are preserved and disseminated.
4. Making all the above texts, along with many others, accessible to the public via a web portal and an app, thereby broadening the reach of these important works.
The operation is overseen by Rabbi Manny Even-Israel, the Executive Director.