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
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chiefSupport our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
