Jack Steel was born in Poland in 1946 and migrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1958.

He is a graduate of Melbourne University in Engineering B.E. (1st class Hons.), M.E. and Ph.D.

After graduating Dr. Steel worked in Telecom Australia for 19 years in the area of Digital transmission.

He started Israeli Dancing in 1994 and has been a keen devotee since then.

To overcome his late entry into the field and assist in his quest to learn as many dances as possible he developed a short hand notation for dancing.

This enables him to write down the steps in real time as they are taught thereby assisting his recollection.

To date more than 1000 dances have been encoded which are accessible on the on-line database.

As an adjunct he began the Israeli Dance Catalogue initially for his own reference and began to produce multiple hard print copies to satisfy local demand.

To create a more accurate and complete catalogue he enlisted the help of his co-authors, his dance colleagues and has interrogated every choreographer who has visited Melbourne since the mid 1990's!

The Catalogue has now become the interactive Israeli Dance Database which is consulted by teachers, choreographers and dancers worldwide.

Israeli Dances.com is proud to have initiated and maintained the hosting of Jack's work online.

It is a unique global resource which lists every recognised Israeli dance created worldwide - more than 5000 at last count - together with all their sources.