A first-class touchscreen memorial wall.
Every plaque, every yahrzeit, every photo. Engraved gold on warm bronze.
The shul's memorial wall is the most sacred display in the building. Most synagogues are using a vendor (Joltone, Wallplaques) running 2010-era kiosk software with a Windows admin tool. MyBimah's Yahrzeit Memorial Board is the modern replacement — a touchscreen kiosk with engraved gold names on warm bronze plaques, today's yahrzeits highlighted, an upcoming list that scrolls calmly, and a search-by-name flow that feels respectful of the moment.
Today + upcoming, always
When someone walks up to the kiosk, they see today's yahrzeits in a featured panel and a calm credits-roll of upcoming yahrzeits over the next 30 days. The auto-scroll pauses on touch and resumes seconds later — no jarring stop, no broken scroll position.
- Hebcal canonical Hebrew month names — Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Sh'vat, Adar I/II, Nisan, Iyyar, Sivan, Tamuz, Av, Elul
- 30-day forward window with day-by-day Gregorian projection
- Auto-scroll via float-accumulator pattern — works smoothly even at 0.25-px-per-frame intervals
- Pause-on-touch with 6-second resume, no jerky restart
- Shabbat-mode hooks (in development): kiosk knows when Shabbat is in
Plaque visual treatment
Plaques render as warm pebbled bronze with double gold frames + engraved Frank Ruhl Libre serif names in vivid gold (#e6c66a). Long names auto-shrink to fit the cell while keeping legibility. Names + dates centered. Subtle parchment + glow effects via inline SVG noise. The kiosk reads as memorial chamber, not tech product.
- Inline SVG feTurbulence overlay for the bronze pebbling
- Box-shadow stack for the gold double-frame engraving effect
- Auto-shrinking name sizes by character count (≤18 / ≤24 / ≤32 / longer)
- Animated SVG candle (CSS keyframe flicker + glow) on the home screen + profile modal
Profile modal with photos + biography
Tap a plaque, get a profile screen: photo (or up to several photos with thumbnails), animated candle, name + lifespan, Hebrew gematria date, biography, family group. Body scrolls; photo + name stay pinned. Auto-closes after 5 minutes of idle so the next visitor isn't stranded on someone else's profile.
- Multi-photo support per plaque — default photo enforced via partial unique index
- Hebrew gematria dates rendered via Hebcal HDate.renderGematriya() — ב׳ אִיָּיר תש״ע
- Biography + family group narrative, edit via admin tooling
- Idle auto-close: 5 min reset on any mousemove / pointerdown / keypress
Search-by-name with on-screen QWERTY
QWERTY layout for touch users + a real text input with autoFocus for keyboard users — both wired to the same query state. Filter narrows in real time. Tap a result, see the profile.
- Real <input autofocus> AND on-screen QWERTY — accommodate both interaction modes
- Narrowing filter on first/last/display name + Hebrew name
- Keyboard accessible: tab through results, Enter to open, Esc to close
Bulk plaque import + photo populator
Migrate from your current vendor with the Python import script. CSV / XLSX export from Joltone / Wallplaques → run scripts/import-yahrzeit-plaques.py. Photo populator script bulk-uploads scanned photos for matching plaques. Idempotent on (tenant, first, last, english_date) — safe to re-run.
- AA prod imported 2,608 plaques from a Joltone XLSX export
- Hebrew month name normalization (Heshvan → Cheshvan, Shevat → Sh'vat, Iyar → Iyyar) — Hebcal canonical names
- Photo upload via macOS sips for image resizing prior to base64 encode
- Multi-tenant safe: import scoped to the target tenant id
Public, no-auth, fast
The kiosk URL is /yahrzeit-board on your tenant subdomain — public, no login, can be locked to a stationary display. Cached aggressively but updated as plaques change. tenant_settings.yahrzeit_board_enabled flag for taking the board offline (returns 404, no info-leak).
- Middleware-allowlisted — no auth required
- Single GET endpoint returns: tenant header, today's yahrzeits, 30-day upcoming, plaques, shabbat_mode block
- Per-photo lazy-fetch: cards render fast, profile loads photos on demand
- Tenant-disable toggle for memorial-quiet weeks
What's coming
- Admin photo-upload UI — currently photos are seeded via the populate script; in-app upload is in development
- Shabbat-mode UI: the API already returns shabbat_mode; the kiosk will gate interactions during Shabbat in a future pass
- Family-tree linking: formalize the soft `family_group` text column into typed FK relationships
- Print-export of the wall layout for vendor handoff (or for synagogues moving to a fresh physical wall)
Other modules
The run-of-service editor — every prayer, honor, page reference in one place.
Plan aliyot weeks ahead, share with families, never lose track again.
The bimah projector — siddur pages, transliteration, English, RTL Hebrew, all driven by your service order.
Congregant help-desk + public Project Board. Capture every question, ship a transparent backlog.
Shivas, B'nei Mitzvah, weddings, off-site services — coordinated end-to-end.
Pastoral care, development, family graph. The relationship layer your books don't have.
Replace your kiosk vendor. Same data, much better experience.
We're onboarding new launch-partner synagogues selectively while we mature the platform with our beta partner. Send a note and we'll set up a conversation.