Aharon Varady, founding director of the Open Siddur Project, is a copyright researcher and amateur book scanner. He prepares digital images and new digital editions of prayer books and related works in the Public Domain in order to make their constituent parts (prayers, translations, annotations, etc.) publicly accessible for collaborative transcription by project volunteers. (In some cases, he finds existing digital editions prepared by others that require correction and reformatting.) If you appreciate his efforts, please send him a kind note or contribute to his patreon account.

Ẓevi Scharfstein (צבי שרפשטיין; 1884-1972), born in Dunaivtsi in the Podolia region of Ukraine, was a prolific Hebrew-language educator, writer, and publishing entrepreneur. He was educated as a child by private tutors and strongly influenced by the Haskalah movement. The movement's emphasis on childhood education and the development of a contemporary Hebrew press both shaped his life and career. After witnessing the violence of pogroms in the region followed by the onset of World War Ⅰ, Scharfstein immigrated to the United States "without a broken heart." He wrote of "writing new textbooks intended and prepared for the young generation of America." Once in the US, he quickly founded a monthly magazine for children, Shaḥarut (Youth). Published by the Bureau of Jewish Education in New York City, Shaḥaruts original mission was to teach Jewish topics and Hebrew language. After the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the periodical shifted to short stories and articles about Jewish life in British Mandate Palestine. Scharfstein also joined Samson Benderly's Bureau of Jewish Education. Scharfstein was an instructor of Hebrew and Hebrew education at the Teachers Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City from 1916 until his retirement in 1960. Scharfstein founding of the Shilo publishing house made him "a teacher of teachers" in the Jewish Diaspora. His only official academic degree was an honorary Doctor of Hebrew Letters, awarded by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Ultimately, he authored 423 works in 698 publications during his career.