One of the primary questions motivating our project was to see the extent to which citations can help us to understand either the social network of the rabbis, or at least how their words were preserved and transmitted. Did rabbis cite their teachers and those connected through those teachers more than others? How might these different “disciple circles” have communicated with each other?
To begin to answer these questions, we used an automated algorithm in Gephi – known as the Louvain Method – to sort the rabbis into “modularity” groups. That is, the algorithm grouped together rabbis who were more connected to each other. Below is a static visualization of the result, that has been somewhat simplified. The boxes and numbers just refer to the major modularity groups; we discuss individual communities further in our forthcoming research article. The size of the dot is correlated to the number of links that it has.
The interactive version is below. A few words about how to use it:
- Each black dot is a single, unique rabbi. To see the name of a rabbi (only in Hebrew at the moment), you can hover over the dot. The buttons in the bottom center will zoom the diagram in and out and reset it to the original view. You can also use the mouse-wheel to zoom. Right clicking and dragging will allow you to pan the diagram. Note that when you zoom in the names will begin to appear.
- Our data records the direction of the links, that is, who is citing whom. The software package that we used did not transfer this information. This is a limitation of the software.
- If you click on a rabbi, that rabbi will appear with all of his connections, that is, rabbis who either he cites or who cite him. In the panel that appears on the right, you will see each of these other rabbis. You can click into them to explore their own networks further. When you want to reset everything and return to the original network, click the X by the “Return to the full network” legend on the top.
- To use the search feature in the panel on the left, you have to switch your keyboard into unicode Hebrew. You can type part of a name; all names that contain that string will appear.
Explore, and let us all know if you have any insights on this page.
