Exciting news from Spain, where Google, in partnership with Red de Juderías de España, the nationwide Network of Jewish Quarters, has launched an impressive — and exhaustive — new web site that provides an interactive exploration of Jewish heritage throughout Spain. Mazel tov to all concerned for this cutting-edge project!
The new site, Caminos di Sefarad, or Routes of Sepharad, involves 24 cities, 523 places, 910 chronological registers, 1.674 images, 67 supplementary texts, and 138 commented voices. There are interactive maps, timelines, clickable links, photographs, detailed site information — and more.
The timelines “use more than 900 significant dates to tell the story of Jew people in Spain. The application generates interactive timelines that can be combined with others to get historical insight of events, artifacts and places.”
Caminos de Sefarad was formally launched this week in a ceremony in Madrid, held in the new Centro Sefarad-Israel, an institution founded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, the Autonomous Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council to further the study of the legacy of Sephardic culture as an integral, living part of Spanish culture; foster a better understanding of Jewish culture; and promote the development of the ties of friendship and cooperation between Spanish and Israeli societies
Here’s what Bill Echikson, head of Google External Relations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, who took part in the launch, said about the new project in a blog post:
Red de Juderías has implemented Google Maps technology so that people can explore the main landmarks online. Clicking on a landmark reveals historical information about each site – and enables a 360º view of the different locations, thanks to Google’s Street View technology. An intuitive search panel presents Jewish heritage sites by category, type, geographic zone and date. In total, 523 sites, 910 dates, and 1,667 pictures are displayed.
This is only one of the projects on Jewish culture and heritage that Google is involved with. Also this week, the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, an online collection of more than 5,000 scroll fragments, were uploaded in high definition.