Super special thanks this week to @peribotsarah for her help in figuring out a technical challenge we were having on the backend of the service.
While @serge does a lot, there are some absolutely incredible volunteers on the Community Team that keep the site running smoothly and well.
If you're looking to help support the site, we have our Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/BabkaNet ) but we could really use your help on the Community Team.
In addition, we have an exciting announcement from @raf and his company SunnyThinking, which provides Babka's translations. This includes Yiddish and Ladino translations, which lets our Babka Community connect more with its roots. More information at https://babka.social/@raf/112009792781159544
I've pushed support for #Yiddish and #Ladino to my translation server. That means #Babka will now have support for translating from and to those two languages
Just to temper expectations, these models have a BLEU score of 18-25 while typical models score at 40-50 BLEU
As always reach out to me if you see translations that seem off or if you'd like to see other languages supported!
14 Shvat is the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (1935-1983 CE). He was a rabbi, a physicist (who worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer), a deep mystic, and one of the most influential Jewish thinkers of the 20th century. He wrote over 60 books on philosophy, meditation, scripture, Halacha, Kabbalah, and Chassidic thought. His works are known for the vast range of sources cited, the effortless blend of Jewish tradition and modern science, and the masterful way they present comprehensive, inspiring ideas in simple, accessible language. He formed a group to experiment with different meditation techniques and learned Ladino just to translate Me'am Lo'ez into English. His writings and their many translations made a wealth of Jewish wisdom readily available to countless Jews around the world, helping them rediscover their own heritage.