The Communities That Live Captioning Leaves Behind

During our synagogue's Zoom services last week, my family and I found ourselves giggling when we should have been serious. Auto-captions were turned on, and they kept botching the rabbi's Hebrew-laced English. Mourner's Kaddish (memorial prayer) was transcribed as mourner Scottish, and refua shlema (wish for a "full recovery") became with flu wash Emma. Some of the transcriptions bordered on offensive, like when Torah became terrorism and yasher koach (great job!) became wish a cough. We weren't relying on the captions and could laugh at these mistakes.