Sample Sources
The sources below are those contained in our three curated collections—covering themes of Passover, Gender Roles, and Holocaust Resistance. They represent a fraction of the thousands of sources that will be available when the full site launches in 2024.
Pesak (Decision): On a Secret Marriage
At a sitting of three judges we the undersigned sat as a court on the fourth day of the month of Adar 2 in the year 5376 [1616] here in Vercelli after permission was given to us from his excellency…
Commentary: On the Jerusalem Talmud
With a brief commentary and some Tosafot (additions) which were balanced, refined, and written by the Torah scholar, the great rabbi, R. Elijah ben Judah Loeb, who dwells in the land of Fulda, based…
Kol sakhal (Voice of a Fool)
Kol sakhal (Voice of a Fool), a polemical work attacking rabbinic Judaism, has been the subject of many scholarly debates. To this day, its composition and aims remain shrouded in mystery. The author…
Fear of Flying
When I got back to the hotel at five-thirty Bennett was waiting. He didn’t ask me where I’d been, but he put his arms around me and started undressing me. He made love to me, to Adrian’s slime, to our…
War and Remembrance
Depending on the wind, the burning time on the frame can be two to ten hours. Some Jews tend the crackling pyre with iron forks. Others, including Jastrow and Mutterperl, are down in the long narrow…
Like a Bride and Like a Mother
Every night I kneel down by the window and look at a bright star that just might be my guardian angel. Then I recite “Our Father” to God and say a “Hail Mary” for the Virgin. I hope that…
Chutzpah
My experience with discrimination—especially at the hands of the Paul, Weiss firm over my Sabbath observance—caused me an embarrassing moment during my interview for the Supreme Court clerkship I did…
Leaving the Fold: Intermarriage
The Torah views the defection of one single Jewish soul from Judaism as the ultimate tragedy, for is not “one solitary Jewish life an entire world”? And an intermarriage is nothing…
A Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism
We affirm the reality and oneness of God, even as we may differ in our understanding of the Divine presence.
We affirm that the Jewish people is bound to God by an eternal בְּרִית (b’rit), covenant…
Leonard Bernstein
Al Hirschfeld was most famous for his caricatures of actors, musicians, and other figures from the arts and public life. He himself preferred to be known as a “characterist.” After the birth of his…
Ewer and Basin
This ewer and basin from Turkey were used to wash hands ritually during the Passover seder. Owned by the Benguiat family, a large and prominent Sephardic family in the Ottoman Empire, the objects…
Interior of the Beth Elohim Synagogue Charleston, South Carolina (Solomon Nunes Carvalho)
The only image of the interior of the first synagogue of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, a congregation established in Charleston in 1749, is this picture, painted from memory by Solomon Nunes Carvalho. The…