The Jastrow Project

A collaboration of volunteers to transcribe Marcus Jastrow's Dictionary into searchable PDF.
File_Stcyprian (31K)
Anyone who's found this site already knows how important and crucial is Jastrow's Dictionary. Now that it is in the Public Domain it is high time that the book was transcribed and made available for searching FOR FREE in searchable PDF. The other great advantage is that a transcribed page is much easier to read. To that end this web site has been constructed.
Just imagine how useful the completed ebook will be!!


Someone recently send me two urls to an OCR'd downloadable and searchable FREE version of Jastrow (Volume 1 and Volume 2). It is surprisingly good (the best I've seen) and comes close to what is envisaged at this site.
The copy and paste works well if you use "Paste Special . . . Unformatted Unicode Text".
Typical of OCR'd texts, it is not perfect (the Greek is jibberish), but the English and Hebrew (unpointed) are remarkably good.
The overall production may make this site redundant. What would be great is if someone took this work, fixed up the mistakes and the Greek into unicode, and then put it all back into a searchable clean PDF.
Any takers?

I call upon anyone who has the time and inclination to contribute to this project. Even just one page will help.
Please advertise this project widely.
To make sure that the pages are standardized, please use the TEMPLATE (page 2 of the Dictionary) below which is in .doc format.


SOME INTEREST HAS BEEN SHOWN RECENTLY AND PAGES ARE BEING TRANSCRIBED


Full bibliographic record of the latest reprinting:
Jastrow, Marcus. Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005.
Logos is planning a version to work with their Libronix library system.

A few suggestions to help keep everything standard and running smoothly:
  • ALL text (English, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic) is in Cardo 9 point. This font and the keyboards necessary are available in the Tyndale Uinicode Font Kit (read the instructions carefully). Please use only these.
  • Main entries only are in bold.
  • It is an A4 page. Please do not change this. Also try not to change the margins or any of the other formatting, and remember to keep to the same colums as Jastrow.
  • The valuable suggestion has been made that the MAIN ENTRIES should also include the Hebrew word WITHOUT nikkud (vowels), to make it easier to search the Hebrew entries. With a little adjustment, this should be achievable without destroying Jastrow's original columns.
  • You will not be able to get your text to be identical in layout from your edition of Jastrow. Make sure though that each column has the same text. That is, start and end a column only when Jastrow does. This will be important for referencing.
  • Switch hyphenation off if you have it on. This will ensure that searching is more efficient.
  • Typing the Hebrew/Aramaic text works well except when it wraps to the next line. Make sure that the whole (Hebrew/Aramaic) text is highlighted and selected as right-to-left. To do this in Word, go to Paragraph and click the appropriate button.
  • If you do more than one page, please convert one page at a time to PDF and email it to me. They will be eventually stitched together.
  • Conversion to PDF can be done for free using freeware software (have a look at PrimoPDF) or OpenOffice.
  • An online copy of Jastrow (non-searchable of course) is available at Tyndale Archive.
  • If you prefer, Volume 1 and 2 of Jastrow can be downloaded from the Etana site.
  • By making use of the enlargement features of the online or downloadable Jastrow, it is easier to see the difference between some letters and to see exactly what vowel pointing is required.
  • For the present, just pick a page(s) to transcribe and go for it. At this early stage, it is not likely that someone will be doing the same page. If this project really takes off then I will have to devise some way of sharing out the pages. I guess if you really want to make sure that nobody doubles up, let me know which page you're doing and I will post a notice of this on this page (SEE BELOW!).
  • By the way, don't forget to put your name in the footer - for posterity!

    Download TEMPLATE Jastrow_0002. This is a .doc file.

    How Jastrow_0002 looks in searchable PDF. Worth the effort don't you think?

    Send your completed .PDF and associated .DOC page to: Jastrow.pdf-at-gmail.com (substitute -at- for @ in the actual email address).
     Someone has suggested that people send me BOTH the .pdf file and the associated .doc file. The .pdf file I will post, the .doc file is for corrections if anyone spots them. Let's give this a go.
    Nevertheless, please do your own proofing, or get someone else to check your work before you send it to me.

    As pdf pages come to me I will post them on this page.
    Obviously, I will cast an eye over each page and randomly check a few lines before uploading.

    I am well aware of Rabbi Ezra Zion Melamed's Aramaic Hebrew English Dictionary of the Babylonian Talmud, and his The practical Talmud dictionary, and for that matter Michael Sokoloff's dictionaries. "The Jastrow", is, I suggest, still extremely important, and will be far more useful as a searchable FREE ebook.
    If and when the whole thing gets done I will stitch the pages together and the completed project will be available in one searchable file.

    This is how the completed PDFs will be posted:
    The pages in bold are being transcribed and will be available in the near future.

    Jastrow_000iJastrow_00iiJastrow_0iiiJastrow_00ivJastrow_000vJastrow_00viJastrow_0viiJastrow_0viiiJastrow_00ixJastrow_000x
    Jastrow_00xiJastrow_0xiiJastrow_xiiiJastrow_0xivJastrow_00xvJastrow_0xviJastrow_xviiJastrow_xviii
    Jastrow_0001Jastrow_0002Jastrow_0003Jastrow_0004Jastrow_0005Jastrow_0006Jastrow_0007Jastrow_0008Jastrow_0009Jastrow_0010
    etc.
    etc.
    Jastrow_0181Jastrow_0182Jastrow_0183Jastrow_0184Jastrow_0185Jastrow_0186Jastrow_0187Jastrow_0188Jastrow_0189Jastrow_0190
    etc.
    etc.
    etc.
    Jastrow_0991Jastrow_0992Jastrow_0993Jastrow_0994Jastrow_0995Jastrow_0996Jastrow_0997Jastrow_0998Jastrow_0999Jastrow_1000
    etc.
    etc.
    etc.
    Jastrow_1311Jastrow_1312Jastrow_1313Jastrow_1314Jastrow_1315Jastrow_1316Jastrow_1317Jastrow_1318Jastrow_1319Jastrow_1320
    etc.
    etc.
    etc.
    Jastrow_1731Jastrow_1732Jastrow_1733Jastrow_1734Jastrow_1735Jastrow_1736


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