Sefaria Updates App With Built-In Grogger For Purim
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Ari Feldman March 20, 2019
The digital Talmud study app Sefaria has released a special update for Purim: The app now has a built-in grogger.
Purim, the raucous holiday of spiels, drinking and dress-up, is beloved also for its participatory reading of the Scroll of Esther, the holiday’s principal text. Traditionally listeners are invited to boo the name of the story’s villain, Haman, every time it is spoken in the story. (54 times, to be exact.)
The tradition also has many Jews using groggers, or wooden noisemakers, to drown out Haman’s name. Now, with Sefaria’s special update, the app is a grogger: Shake it and it makes the tell-tale sound of wood clapping loudly against a gear.
via GIPHY
Sefaria also brought back its “emoji megillah,” which is exactly what it sounds like.
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
