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Links to Tradition

As a kid growing up in Pascagoula, Miss., it eventually dawned on Fivel Smiles that \"I was the only Jew in my high school. If you wanted something Jewish, it wasn\'t easy.\"
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September 14, 2000

As a kid growing up in Pascagoula, Miss., it eventually dawned on Fivel Smiles that “I was the only Jew in my high school. If you wanted something Jewish, it wasn’t easy.”

An Orthodox Jew, Smiles never forgot that sense of cultural alienation, even after arriving in Los Angeles years ago to learn under Rabbi Nachum Sauer of Yeshiva University. In 1995, when audio was made possible over the Internet, Smiles tuned in.

“I figured that they have the whole Internet and they listen to the World Series,” says Smiles, 36. “There’s got to be a better use for it.”

So on Jan. 1, 1996, Smiles, a graduate of UCLA’s School of Information Science, and his friend Randy Katz uploaded a lecture by Rabbi Shimon Green of Jerusalem, kicking off Jewish Torah Audio at 613.org, a site billing itself as the “first Jewish audio Web site” devoted to Jewish thought and belief.The site grew through word of mouth and Smiles continued to feed it with new material. Jewish Torah Audio now offers hundreds of hours of lectures and discussions on every area of modern Jewish life – from holiday traditions to issues of marital relations and infertility to advice about balancing Judaism and a Hollywood career – ready for downloading. The site offers over 250 classes of parashot, and a side site had to be created to accommodate the daily page of gemara and surrounding commentarydafyomi.org

Smiles credits New York-based Ivan Norman for turning his obsession with documenting and cataloguing classes into a great boon for 613.org

“He’s, like, addicted to taping lectures,” says Smiles, half-joking.

Thanks to sponsors the Nathan and Vivian Fink Foundation and the Jewish Internet Fund, the site has flourished. As technology gets cheaper and the y-brand wireless capability becomes available, Smiles hopes to broadcast live classes. He sees his site and accompanying CDs as an archival resource, preserving the words of spiritual leaders, such as the late Yeshiva University scholar Rabbi Joseph Sloveitchik, a voice of Modern Orthodoxy for 40 years who passed away a decade ago.

“You can hear one of the greatest rabbis in the world say the ‘Kaddish.’ You might as well learn it from him,” says Smiles.

Definitely the most prominent female voice on the site – with more than 40 hours of material – is that of Smiles’ wife of 13 years, who until recently taught Hebrew studies at YULA High School for Girls. Local contributors also include Young Israel of Century City’s Rabbi Elazar Muskin, Westwood Kehilla’s Rabbi Asher Brander, and Beth Jacob Congregation’s Rabbi Steve Weil, who succeeded Rabbi Abner Weiss – another site staple.

Suddenly, everyone from Rabbi Samuel Irons in Detroit to the chief rabbi in England is at your fingertips… and ear drums. Which is the point, says Smiles: “Rabbi Weiss doesn’t go to Wisconsin. That’s the great thing about the Internet. It connects people, in a certain way.”

While the Internet has increased Judaism’s accessibility, Smiles is cautious about the notion of seeking Judaism online.

“This is not the end goal,” says Smiles. “We don’t try to be an end-all. We want them to be connected to Judaism and, if they like what they hear, they’ll go to shul with real people.”

For more information on Jewish Torah Audio, go to613.org; or contact Fivel Smiles at fsmiles@613.org

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