(21) Sara Wolkenfeld @ Sefaria: Opening up access to Torah in the digital age
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I learn every day with my chavruta in Israel using Sefaria sources. So I’m delighted to be
interviewing Rabbanit Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld, Chief Learning Officer at Sefaria, the online
database and interface for Jewish texts.
Sara is passionate about Talmud education and about expanding Jewish textual knowledge
and its accessibility for all. She writes and teaches widely about Jewish texts and Jewish
law, and her current projects focus on applying Talmudic ideas to questions of
advancements in digital technology.
We discuss ways she uses AI to improve accessibility on Sefaria, her goals for women’s
learning in the future, and worrying trends in access to texts commonly cited by antisemites.
Sara is also a member of Class Six of the Wexner Field Fellowship and an alumna of the
David Hartman Center at the Hartman Institute of North America. She serves as
Scholar-in-Residence at Ohev Sholom Congregation in Washington, DC and her research
and writing focus on the intersection between Jewish ethics and advancements in
technology. Sara’s writing has been published in The Atlantic, First Things, and Religion
Dispatches, as well as numerous Jewish publications.
United States
