[NFBJ] Hebrew braille on refreshable braille devices

Fri Aug 21 03:50:40 UTC 2026

Adi's English is quite good. His products are impressive. In 2023 he had a prototype of the Ultima at the NFB convention in Houston and I was able to see it. It has a full QWERTY keyboard and a braille display. Some of the keys can be mapped to braille keys if desired. It came with no monitor but could be connected to one if desired. It is a fascinating design. The idea is to empower blind people to have Windows access from any point in the process. I love the concept because IMHO the best Hebrew access is on the PC.
Its weakness (IMHO) was that it was heavy and about as thick as the old-style Braille Lite. I would like to see improvement in that regard.

Sarah Blake LaRose, D.Min.
sarah at sarahblakelarose.com
http://www.sarahblakelarose.com

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBJ <nfbj-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of mlevy--- via NFBJ
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2026 11:33 PM
To: NFB in Judaism <nfbj at nfbnet.org>
Cc: mlevy at verse-onality.com
Subject: Re: [NFBJ] Hebrew braille on refreshable braille devices

Thank you for this info.

NLS was going to invest in Orbit and then moved on to lavish attention on another site.

It comes back again to money.

Could Orbit or Avi help us get his technology to the fingertips of blind users?

Let’s bring Avi to the table.
With a translator if necessary.

From: NFBJ <nfbj-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Rachel Bodek via NFBJ
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2026 11:15 PM
To: in Judaism NFB <nfbj at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Rachel Bodek <rybodek at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NFBJ] Hebrew braille on refreshable braille devices

A great person to include in this discussion somehow is Mr Adi Kushnir. He is a brilliant, blind programmer from Israel and is working with orbit currently. I met him at the Nfb convention and I tried sending him an email but couldn't get through to him. Maybe some of you can also try to reach out to him? Here is the email address I got for him from his colleague  adi.kushnir at orbitresearch.com<mailto:adi.kushnir at orbitresearch.com>
This  message  was  sent  with  my  mobile  phone,  please  disregard  any  typos  or  grammatical  errors.  Thanks,  Rachel Bodek, TVI,  Insight Beyond Eyesight

On Aug 20, 2026, at 2:33 PM, mlevy--- via NFBJ <nfbj at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbj at nfbnet.org>> wrote:
I think we should all unite behind Duxbury and work with them.

It's not just how good their software is.
It's also that they listen to us.

JBI doesn't.

Davka doesn't.

CSBCARE has too many other projects going.

Eventually

WE THE USERS

Should start our own tech Hebrew braille support company.

That's down the road a few years.

Also, nowadays een Torah scholars look to modern Israeli heroes and poets for support.

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBJ <nfbj-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbj-bounces at nfbnet.org>> On Behalf Of Sarah Blake LaRose via NFBJ
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2026 2:04 PM
To: in Judaism NFB <nfbj at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbj at nfbnet.org>>
Cc: Sarah Blake LaRose <sarah at sarahblakelarose.com<mailto:sarah at sarahblakelarose.com>>
Subject: Re: [NFBJ] Hebrew braille on refreshable braille devices

It depends on what the devices are using for braille support. For instance if they are using LibLouis the tables will be moderately useful but different from if they are using Duxbury. Duxbury has both American Hebrew and Israeli Hebrew support. But the device may not be set up to allow you to switch between the two. Most devices are using LibLouis which does not have both American and Israeli Hebrew support. The Hebrew tables in Lib Lewis are in my opinion rather messy and may not give the results you are used to.
Sarah Blake LaRose, D.Min.
http://www.sarahblakelarose.com

The Lord bless you and keep you.

On Aug 20, 2026, at 12:56 PM, mlevy--- via NFBJ <nfbj at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbj at nfbnet.org>> wrote:

Consult CSBCARE and any Israeli blind people you know.CSBARE

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBJ <nfbj-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbj-bounces at nfbnet.org>> On Behalf Of Daveed Mandell via NFBJ
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2026 12:02 PM
To: nfbj at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbj at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Daveed Mandell <daveedmandell at gmail.com<mailto:daveedmandell at gmail.com>>
Subject: [NFBJ] Hebrew braille on refreshable braille devices

Shalom:

Does anyone use a refreshable Braille device to read and write Hebrew Braille? I am not talking about reading BRF files. I'm talking about reading and writing Hebrew Braille from scratch.

For instance, devices manufactured by Selvas have incomplete Braille tables for Hebrew. I noticed that the input table contains fewer signs than the output table. I also noticed that US computer Braille appears to be required to read and write Hebrew, which is ridiculous.

For several years I have reached out to this company asking them to work with the Israeli developers of firmware provided with their  devices sold in Israel. The firmware provides complete tables for Hebrew, in addition to English, Russian and Arabic.

Incidentally, Selvas devices sold elsewhere, such as the BrailleSense 6, do not provide Arabic. However, I have just discovered that Arabic without vowels appears to be included in the Hebrew braille output table, which is really strange. One can read Arabic without vowels, although I don't think the representation is completely accurate. One cannot write uncontracted Arabicboth with and without  vowels, and contracted Arabic, because there are no actual Arabic tables.

The only way one can write Hebrew on these devices is without vowels. Hebrew with vowels can be read, but it does not conform at all with the Hebrew braille code. Because Hebrew is my second language, I am able to figure it out, but frankly, it is a mess!

I would like to hear about other people's experiences reading Hebrew on various refreshable Braille devices, such as Braille BT, or any other devices, such as those from Humanware and Orbit. One should be able to easily read and write Hebrew Braille, both with and without vowels. One should also be able to write bilingual and/or multilingual documents.

For instance, writing two Drashot (sermons) for my Congregation this year took hours to accomplish, because of the awkward way in which Hebrew is represented. At first, I had to write the English in computer Braille and add the Hebrew as an afterthought. I then figured out that I could write the English in contracted UEB, and then switch codes to Hebrew. Still, the process was clumsy at best. I had to send the sermns to the Congregation's collection afterward, and the format was awful. I had to get sighted assistance to fix it.

One of my big concerns is that language support on refreshable Braille devices is one of the weakest links, as far as refreshable braille devices are concerned. All refreshable Braille devices should contain all Braille language tables, so that anyone could choose the language(s) they wish to use. There are literally hundreds of tables in both Duxbury and  LibLouis Braille translation software. They should all be available on every refreshable Braille device. Humanware now provides them. I would also like to see manufacturers of refreshable Braille devices come up with a way to allow for automatic detection of various languages, so that one could read bilingual or multilingual documents with ease.

Kol tuv,

Daveed

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