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.
The Love of Zion
Azrikam grew in his father’s house like a thorn, becoming uglier as he grew. Tamar, however, grew more beautiful day by day. The contrast between these two children was not only noticeable in their…
Introduction to the Commentary on Numbers—Me’am Lo’ez
The introduction to the first volume of this work, which you already have, explains that one must know what mitzvot God commanded us to perform, and what he obliged us to avoid, to find…
Portrait of Menasseh Ben Israel
This engraving of famed intellectual Menasseh ben Israel, made by Shalom Italia, is one of the earliest known portraits of a Jewish thinker by a Jewish artist. Italia highlights Menasseh's scholarly…
The Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue, Entrance
Mikve Israel-Emanuel is a synagogue that served the Spanish Portuguese Jewish community in Curaçao (and continues to function today as a Reconstructionist congregation). It is the oldest surviving…
Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed
This edition of Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed was printed in Sabbioneta, Italy by Cornelio Adelkind for Tobias Foà. The twelfth-century work was an attempt to reconcile Aristotelianism with…
Text of an Excommunication
This text of an excommunication, found in David Aboab’s manuscript of Sefer emet ve-yatsiv (True and Certain), chronicles a conflict in the Sephardic congregation of Curaçao. The first Jews arrived in…
Narraçāo da vinda dos Judeos espanhões a Amsterdam (Account of the Coming of the Spanish Jews to Amsterdam)
The illustrious gentlemen, ḥakham R. Mosseh Ury ha-Levi (of blessed memory) and his son, R. Aaron Ury ha-Levi, my father and master: both were residents of Emden, in the province of Oost-Friesland…
Responsum: On a Reluctant Bridegroom
There was a certain man in our country who had become totally impoverished, and who had betrothed his elder daughter to her appropriate mate. During the period of her betrothal—the date fixed for…
Responsum: On Postponing a Wedding
Question 4: Reuben, a young Torah scholar from the city of Tiberias, contracted a marital arrangement with Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Jacob, from the city of Sepphoris. This is the text of the…
Colophon: Seder taharot (Order of Purification)
So said Jacob ben R. Ḥayim Ibn Adoniyahu of blessed memory, after completing the proofreading of Seder taharot, I intended to apologize, since the subject is not habitual, and the source texts are few…
Tsemaḥ David (The Sprout of David): On the Invention of the Printing Press
The printing of books: began [lit. “was located”] in the city of Mainz, by a Christian man named Johannes Gutenberg of Strasbourg, and this was in the first year of the pious emperor, Friedrich, in…
Sifte yeshenim (Lips of the Sleepers): On Citing Authors
I am astonished to see that for reading just the names of the holy books, one receives his reward, as if he had read and studied them all. If so, then one will not make much of an effort to study…