Search

Searching in Hebrew

When searching in Hebrew you can use either FreeFind or Google with our Virtual JavaScript Keyboard for Hebrew that requires no Hebrew keyboard support.  FreeFind has indexed our site; but Google has indexed the whole Web and you can search the whole Web using Google's powerful engine and our page for easy input of Hebrew.

Why FreeFind and Why Google?

FreeFind has * and ? wildcards that allow for searching of text with added suffixes and infixes; but Google does not support wildcards (Google does know about a limited set of suffixes in both Hebrew and English and will find words with those suffixes, whether you want them or not).  Google can search for phrases as simple "quoted expressions"; but FreeFind can search for exact phrases or inexact ones with other words in the middle (see below).  FreeFind can find text with vowels and cantillation marks as long as they have the right letter spelling, whether they have vowels or not (vowels are ignored); Google simply cannot find text with vowels or cantillation marks unless you specify the right vowels and cantilation marks.  "The Whole Site" option at FreeFind above does include all of our English and Hebrew-English pages as well as our Hebrew pages for Bible and Mishneh Torah; but unlike Google, it does not include our Sources of Oral Law Collection in Hebrew (Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, and Bavli).

FreeFind Options

The method for searching with FreeFind is quite simple:  By default it searches for pages that contain all of the search words.  If that is not possible, it tries to find pages that contain any search word (and displays a message that this was done).

In addition, there are several ways to modify the default search behavior:

• phrase search
  The search engine supports three types of phrase search:
  To match an exact phrase, use "quotes around the phrase"
  To match a near (within a couple of words) phrase, use [square brackets around the words]
  To match a far (within several words) phrase, use {braces around the words}
   
• * wildcard
  If a search word ends with a *, all words on a page that start the same way as that search word will match; if it has a * in the middle of the word, all words on a page that start and end the same way as that search word will match, whatever they have in the middle.
  Examples:  form*, form*ion, form*ion*
   
• ? wildcard
  If a search word contains a ?, any character will match that position.
  Example:  b?g
   
• + and - qualifiers
  If you put a + before a word, that word is required to be on the page.
  If you put a - before a word, that word is required to not be on the page.
  Example:  +always -never
   
• boolean search
  You can use the following boolean operators in your search:  AND, OR, NOT.  These operators MUST be in capital letters.
  Example: (contact AND us) OR (about AND us)
   
• These techniques can be combined:  +alway* -ne??r* for*ion*

FreeFind Search Engine Used Here

Like other Web search engines, you cannot know how many times what you have searched for appears on a page, unless you do a search with your browser for the individual appearances or unless you read the whole page, so that even if a term appears a dozen times, the results of a search will give you just the first appearance.  This seems to be a feature of all Web search engines we have used, including Google (if you use the "cached" copy, at least the searched-for words are emphasized).

We highly recommend the FreeFind search engine for use on other sites, especially in Hebrew.

Offline Search Engines for Downloading

If you need a search engine for Mishneh Torah and the Bible that will directly find all individual halakhot or verses that have your search term, try downloading our MTR freeware for the PC.  Note that the MTR freeware's texts also include Targum Onqelos, Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, and Bavli.  You can also do global searches in our MTR Palm freewares.