minow@rex.DEC (Martin Minow, DECtalk Engineering ML3-1/U47 223-9922) (01/28/86)
From The Wall Street Journal, 27-Jan-86, p. 1: A sofer is a Hebrew scribe who specializes in repairing sacred Jewish scrolls. Since all the work must be done by hand and according to strict rules that scribes trace back to the days of Moses, Rabbi Aryeh Schechter's profession hasn't changed much in thousands of years. But now it may be on the verge of a revolution. A few innovative sofrim have developed a computerized optical scanning system to identify missing letters or words, cracked ink and other imperfections that render sacred scrolls invalid. "To locate all the mistakes is hard," explains Rabbi Yakov Basch, the executive director of the Vaad Mishmereth Stam, the Committee for Safeguarding the Scribal Arts. "What a computer is better for is that it's exact. It's also going to save us a lot of time." Although the technology is still in its infancy, the Vaad is seeking investors to form Identiscroll Inc. The company hopes to operate 14 mobile scanning units in Israel, Europe, and the U.S., starting next year. The system isn't expected to eliminate any jobs. In fact, Rabbi Basch expects it to make more work available for the 200 or so men who work as sofrim in the U.S. Rabbi Schechter, who teaches a calligraphy class, still has doubts about whether computerized scroll-checking is feasible. "If the post office has trouble sorting the mail with a computer," he says, "we're sure to have trouble." Posted by Martin Minow decvax!minow, minow%rex.dec@decwrl.arpa