[NFBJ] Scribes interested in learning about blindness
mlevy at verse-onality.com
mlevy at verse-onality.com
Wed Aug 19 02:40:10 UTC 2026
Let's take a deep dive back to Harry Brevis.
Harry was a rabbinical student in the 1920's at thee Reform Hebrew Union College. He realized that he was losing his sight and would, soon, be totally blind.
He either invented, or finalized, the International Hebrew Braille Code which we still use today.
He perfected the format of having Hebrew on the right-hand braille page and English on the left.
This was no easy feat. Even Grade Two English braille takes up much more room on the left than Hebrew does on the right.
The right-hand pages contained fewer lines than the left. The braille reader would find himself touching a lot of blank unused space on the right.
Too many subsequent transcribers have strayed from this format.
Here my history might not be totally accurate.
His work was so impressive that the Library of Congress authorized him to write
"A Chrstomathy of Hebrew Literature."
A later edition, "An Anthology of Hebrew Literature, with more refinements, was also published.
The beginning of Volume One of that two-volume masterpiece featured the best of the Bible.
The seven Days of Creation.
Exodus's Ten Commandments
. Isaiah's vision of the Lord on His Heavenly Throne.
The volume ended with the entire six-chapter Mishnah called "pirke Avot,"--Ethics of the fathers."
I still use that Avot today.
Volume Two was a grand tour of modern Hebrew literature.
Chaim Nachman Bialik.
"Three Who Ae," about people forced to break their Yom Kippur fast because of cholera. They ate, and they wept.
The above Brevis achievements should have brought him prizes and recognition.
He didn't stop there.
He thought---
Could there be Grade Two Hebrew Braille?
Let's say you didn't need English. You wanted to put as much of a prayerbook into one volume as you could.
Even the Nemeth-edited Art Scroll braille Shabbat and Holiday and weekday prayers take up at least seven volumes
The beginning of my post-Bar Mitzvah Jewish life overlapped with Harry's final years.
He was kind enough to send me a short summary of His grade Two innovations.
I carried it from home to dorm to dorm to apartment, to a cramped post-married co-op apartment.
I lost it.
what I write here is from memory.
Harry's s genius strategy
What text occupies the most space in prayerbooks?
Baruch atta ado nai elo heinu Melech Ha-olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotav v-tzivanu.
"Blessed art thou, O Lor our God, King of the Universe.
He has commanded us concerning his Mitzvahs to ------.
Harry innovated.
Baruch equals one braille dash, dots 3-6, preceding whatever words follow it.
Baruch Ata--- two dashes.
Baruch atta A do nai--- three dashes
Baruch atta Ado nai elo haynu Melech ha-olam
Four dashes,
And all the way through vtzivanu
Five dashes.
He didn't stop there.
Dots 4, 5, 4-5-6, and so forth precede words that occurred often at the beginning of liturgical phrases.
Asher
Alenu
Min
Al
Kol
Through Harry's genius, I have printed out traveling prayerbooks.
This is crucial when I travel out-of-town and overseas.
The Temple in Waycross Georgia doesn't stock Braille prayerbooks for Yom Kippur, you're lucky if eighty-five SIGHTED Jews attend.
JBI helped me in that regard, but I ended up customizing my own prayerbook for the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
I don't know who if anybody has a complete summary of Brevis's work.
Now that we have Duxbury, the best people for Hebrew braille, every movement can produce what it needs.
JBI has worked with Daka, but it has not succeeded yet.
I had the privilege of working closely with JBI and reform Congregation Brith Kodesh (in Rochester or thereabouts, with master class caliber transcribers Edith Halpern and Duane Levy to compile
"Gates of Prayer"
"Gates of Repentance"
And a favorite
-- a Haggadah
"Gates of Freedom."
Richad Borgersen and I flew to Rochester to meet with Duane and Edith. Some of us spoke on Shabbat at Brith Kodesh.
The Haggadah featured yet ANOTHER braille code,
Braille music.
Concluding Thoughts
I understand what BANA (Braile Authority of North America) has done.
Its regulations should not apply to religious works.
Here we are in late 5786.
WE stand on the shoulders of giants.
That's the only reason that we can innovate in ways that they couldn't.
The Challenge
Any post-high-school Jew could create his or her own
Partial or complete traveling Bible
Partial or complete traveling prayerbook.
JBI has taken a step in the right direction.
I don't know if that step is automatic or even remembered at this point.
In the days of Mindy Fliegelman, Pearl Lamm, and Arlene Arff,
You could request twenty volumes of the art-Scroll prayerbook.
You could open the binders and remove only sections that you needed for a given weekday, Shabbat, or Holiday.
You could then re-assemble those sections into an empty binder.
-----Original Message-----
From: NFBJ <nfbj-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Scott Siegel via NFBJ
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2026 7:23 PM
To: in Judaism NFB <nfbj at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Scott Siegel <deadeyenurse at att.net>
Subject: Re: [NFBJ] Scribes interested in learning about blindness
I find this is also an interesting concept. Although I don’t really read English braille, I don’t know how it work with Hebrew braille. Does Hebrew braille also rely heavily on contractions and shortcuts as English braille does, if so, would this be acceptable or would it have to be the whole words, because the way I understand it the problem with subscribe copying a new tourist is they have to make sure that they don’t change any of the words. Anyway, just my thoughts on this maybe I’m totally way off. I don’t know. Since. Yontif is quickly approaching, we’re only a month away, wishing all a happy and healthy new year. May everybody be inscribed in the book of life and prosperity for the coming year… Baruch Hashem Sent from my iPhone
> On Aug 18, 2026, at 10:43 AM, mlevy--- via NFBJ <nfbj at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> Contact CSBCARE.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NFBJ <nfbj-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Daveed Mandell via
> NFBJ
> Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2026 10:13 AM
> To: in Judaism NFB <nfbj at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Daveed Mandell <daveedmandell at gmail.com>; nfbj at nfbnet.org
> Subject: Re: [NFBJ] Scribes interested in learning about blindness
>
> Shalom:
>
> This is very exciting! Torah reading is something I have longed to do all my life. I was just recently thinking about a Torah with both print and Braille. Wouldn't that be something? By the way, does anyone have information on Braille trope signs for both Torah and Haftarah chanting?
>
> Kol tuv,
>
> Daveed
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Aug 17, 2026, at 4:32 PM, Rachael D Hudson via NFBJ <nfbj at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> Shalom y’all,
> A friend recently met a group of scribes at a maker space in Minnesota. He connected them with me in the hopes that I could pass them on to this group to help begin facilitating conversation. It’s my understanding that these are orthodox or ultra orthodox scribes who are inspired by Rabbi Lenny‘s approach to a braille Torres scroll, but want to create something with the traditionally prescribed in and so on. It is their hope that we can also perhaps put together a call in which they can learn from users of Hebrew Braille… Obviously, sometime after the high holidays.
>
> I agreed to send their message (below)
>
>
> A new project is exploring the creation of sacred Jewish texts that
> combine traditional handwritten Hebrew with Hebrew Braille, beginning
> with a prototype Megillat Esther and working towards a complete,
> kosher Torah scroll with Braille. The goal is to make communal ritual
> texts more accessible to blind Jews while preserving the rigorous
> requirements of Jewish scribal tradition. The project is feedback and
> suggestions from the blind community to help shape the work, which is
> being developed through the Kedusha Project:
> www.thekedushaproject.org<http://www.thekedushaproject.org>
>
> -Rachael Everhart Hudson (She/Her)
> 267-268-5780
> "Do the hard things while they are still easy... The journey of a
> thousand miles begins with a single step." -Lao Tzu
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