Varda Books, in collaboration with The Jewish Publication Society, has over the last few years been publishing a series of electronic editions of sacred Jewish texts, commentaries, historical studies, and critical resources, all leveraging the dynamic analytic capabilities of digital media. Popular on Varda’s online retail site, ebookshuk, are book “bundles” – collections of sacred texts and critical commentaries that enable nimble and complex intertextual analysis, or, as described for the “JPS Digital Torah Library,” serve as the “cornerstone of one’s personal, open-standards, inter-linked, cross-file-searchable, digital Jewish library.” Other bundles include “Judaic Scholar Digital Reference Library I” and “The Rabbinic Bookshelf.”
Jewish scriptural study and the Talmud have often been cited as among the earliest great hypertext traditions. Layered interpretations and non-linear modes of reading have long been central to this tradition, which continues to evolve into digital space.