NEWS JEWS CAN USE (WITH A SIDE DISH OF SCALIA): The entire Talmud is now online. Here’s the description at Kesher Talk, where I found the link: “For the first time, the entire text of the Babylonian Talmud as it appears in the standard Vilna edition is now available on-line thanks to a website called E-Daf.

“The site, conceived by Rabbi Dovid Kraus, contains all 2,711 pages of the Talmud, which are laid out using precisely the same format as printed versions of the text (known in Hebrew as Tzurat HaDaf).

“Users can download or print out the desired page for free, enabling them to study at their convenience, even when they travel. In addition, the site contains links to English-language Talmud classes.”

KT also links to the newly-formed National Institute for Judaic Law, which seeks to promote understanding of Jewish law, and notes, “One important legal mind who already has expressed an interest in Judaic law is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The Institute’s director discussed Jewish law with Scalia a few years ago when the latter came to Buffalo to speak at his law school. The professor later received a letter from the justice noting the benefit of studying other law systems, especially one as developed as Jewish law.

“…The Catholic Scalia was one of three Supreme Court justices — along with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both of whom are Jewish — who attended and delivered brief remarks at the institute’s kick-off event earlier this month at the Supreme Court. The 200-person event also included a sit-down kosher dinner, the first ever served at the nation’s highest court.”