Life

Judaism – There’s An App For That

By Allison Gaudet Yarrow June 8, 2009

In honor of the new iPhone updates just announced today by Apple, we here at the Forward wanted to share our Top 5 Jewish iPhone Apps, and since we’re mindful of the tough times, we chose only those applications under $1.99.

iBlessing: “Blessings Often Come in Disguise. This One Comes in Your iPhone.” $0.99

No more fumbling for the prayer book. iBlessing speaks to you, reciting aloud six different Berachot for food and wine, and even throws in the Shema for fun. Press a food from the place mat diagram to see the name of its proper blessing. The blessing is spoken slowly, in Hebrew and then in English, so you can repeat each word.

Jewish Mother: “This Phone Could Also be Used to Call me, You Know!” $0.99

Looking for more nagging in your life? The Jewish Mother app provides more than 100 “guilt-ridden” phrases from a frizzy-haired Ima in your iPhone. Select Single or Married, then Man or Woman, and a Jewish Mother will pepper you with torments, like these:

For a married man: “If you made me a grandmother, I’d be too busy to nag you.”

For a single woman: “I don’t need you to marry a doctor. But your grandmother, she has her heart set on it.”

Written by funnyman, Steve Hofstetter who stars in “The King Davids of Comedy,” a popular fundraiser for Magen David Adom, Jewish Mother is a bit of a one-trick pony, but it’s one we love to ride.

Parve-O-Meter: “Am I Dairy? Am I meaty?” FREE

Never wonder whether you are still fleishik. Push the red “Meat” button once you’ve finished your burger, and a timer counts the 6 hours until you can have a glass of milk. Tap the blue “Dairy” key after your yogurt, and the timer ticks down your choice of 30 or 60 minutes before meat can be eaten.

Jewish users who choose to wait 3 hours after meat to eat dairy complain that this is not an option in the Parve-O-Meter application. Free apps are often imperfect.

The Holidays Calendar: “The Everlasting Calendar!” $1.99

Including Jewish holidays, many favorite US Holidays, as well as foreign holidays, like UK bank holidays, this calendar application suits anyone with cause to celebrate.

You can even turn off the holidays you don’t celebrate with individual switches, and the calendar comes in three languages – English, French, and German. Another memorable feature, The Holiday Calendar app tells you how many days to wait for a particular holiday to roll around. You will be relieved to know that there are still 111 days until Yom Kippur.

Hebrew/English Translator: “Since Apple Does Not Yet Have a Hebrew Keyboard, We Created One.” FREE

The practicality of this application surpasses many of the others, but the translation isn’t instantaneous. It works best in bursts – translating a word will run you 10 seconds, a short sentence, about a minute. After that, the wait gets longer, but it’s still a useful tool to put in your pocket for those strolls along Ben Yehuda.

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