NYC Gazette

The Yeshiva University Archives has completed the processing of its COVID-19 collection, which focuses on the Orthodox Jewish community's response to the pandemic. This collection includes a range of digital materials such as images, documents, and audio/video files sourced primarily from the web. In many instances, Jewish institutions and individuals created entire websites to share these materials.

Sara Saiger, an Archives Associate involved in this project, highlighted the challenges faced in preserving interactive websites. She noted that while tools like the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine are valuable for capturing website history, they often miss key components like images or videos. To address this issue and maintain greater control over archiving results, Saiger learned web archiving techniques and utilized a free Google Chrome extension called Archiveweb.page.

Saiger shared examples of archived websites that played significant roles during the pandemic. One such site is https://virtualdreidel.com, launched for Chanukah 2020 to allow families and friends to play dreidel online amid restrictions on in-person gatherings. Another example is Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh's remote learning platform used during spring 2020 when classes moved online.

Additionally, https://shofaronthecorner.com was created by a Chabad emissary in Toronto for Rosh Hashanah 2020. The site aimed to facilitate outdoor shofar blowing events by providing a registry where volunteers could sign up and attendees could find nearby locations.

Despite capturing approximately 60 entities' websites within their archives—a fraction of over 30,000 items—the challenge remains in making these archived sites accessible online due to resource constraints. Currently, those interested must visit the archives in person by appointment via email at archives@yu.edu.