A page of Talmud. Photo: Chajm Guski/Wikimedia

i24 News – An innovative algorithm for identifying quotations and references in Jewish historical texts is receiving a grant from Israel’s Science and Technology Ministry.

Dr. Jonathan Schler, head of computer sciences at the Holon Institute of Technology (HIT), and collaborators from Bar-Ilan University, received $100,000 to develop the algorithm.

Schler joined “Holy Land Uncovered” host Emily Frances to talk about the breakthrough.

“From the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) to these days, Jewish scholars were requested to answer questions and they were relying on previous rabbis to answer the questions.

“When they relied on rabbis from previous generations, they cited their work. But those citations, unlike current documents where we see hyperlinks, the texts are not hyperlinked.

“Our work is to reveal those hyperlinks, extract them, and make them accessible, so whenever we see a document that refers to previous books or previous rabbis, we can see them in references and extract them and make them live and active to go back to those books.”