responsa on questions connected with agriculture and horticulture in the Holy Land, including the problems of the cessation of all labor in the fields during the Sabbatical year and the use of etrogs from Israel. Following are representative examples: Moses Sofer discussed whether the "bimah" might be removed from the center and placed near the Ark, as is now the case in all Reform and even in many Orthodox synagogues, but was then interdicted as an innovation. In another responsum he debated whether a Jewish sculptor was permitted by his religion to carve human figures. Joseph Saul Nathanson discussed the problem of the transfer of a corpse from one place of burial to another. In another responsum he replied in the affirmative to a question sent him from New York City asking whether a Protestant church might be changed into a synagogue. He was one of the first to permit the use of machinery in baking Matzah. Isaac Schmelkes passed judgment on the question of civil marriage, which the laws of Hungary permitted between Jews and non-Jews, and he debated also whether electric lights may be used for Hanukkah, and whether the telephone or the phonograph may be used on the Sabbath. In addition to the collections of responsa already mentioned, important examples of responsa literature in the nineteenth century include: the "Ḥesed le-Abraham" of Abraham Te'omim, the "Ketab Sofer" of Abraham Samuel Benjamin Sofer, and the "Be'er Yiẓḥaḳ" of Isaac Elhanan Spektor., Königsberg, n.d. Twentieth century–present While many of the responsa throughout history have been written down and can be found in various books or anthologies, a lot of responsa today can be found on online databases such as The Global Jewish Database (The Responsa Project) at Bar-Ilan University. The Schechter Institute's website also has six volumes of Conservative responsa written by the Rabbinical Assembly. Responsa of Orthodox Judaism In contemporary Orthodox Judaism, responsa remain a primary channel whereby halakhic decisions and policies are formulated and communicated. Notable collections of Responsa published in the 20th Century include those by Moshe Feinstein, Ovadia Yosef, Eliezer Waldenberg, Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg and Meir Arik. Contemporary responsa deal with both traditional questions and phenomena associated with modern social, religious, medical and technological developments. For example, Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon noted that, while orbiting the earth, the space shuttle experiences a day/night cycle approximately every ninety minutes. Thus, Ramon asked whether he should keep