News

Actions

Will there soon be a Torah emoji?

Posted at 6:53 AM, Jun 05, 2019
and last updated 2019-06-05 06:53:27-04

Sefaria, a non-profit organization working to assemble an online library of Jewish texts, plans to petition the non-profit corporation that reviews and develops new emojis to add a Torah emoji, according to its official Facebook page.

The organization is asking its users to vote online for the design it will propose to The Unicode Consortium.

One of the two choices features an open scroll and the other a closed text wrapped in a blue mantel.

A winner will be picked by the end of the week, in time for the Jewish holiday Shavuot, according to Sefaria’s Facebook page. Shavuot, which begins on Saturday, celebrates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people on Mount Sinai.

If Unicode adds the emoji, it would join a handful of religious emojis including a rosary, cross, mosque, church, and synagogue.

Companies that use emojis, such as Apple and Google, put their own spin on the cartoons and decide which options from the master list to include.

Earlier this year, The Unicode Consortium announced the addition of 59 new emojis, including a guide dog and a woman in a wheelchair.