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.
Kol Hakavod!
At noon in the kasbah
When the souk was packed
I’d be walking around
My chest toned and hard
And they’d all be saying: What a guy
And as I walked down the alleyways
From every window…
Memorial Service
Crags in the mountains facing us
are like bereaved mothers
who long ago altered their image:
dew does not slake them,
the sun does not gild them.
—How terrible their silence
and where can we flee?—
A…
Solomon Maimon: An Autobiography
I was sent to school at Iwenez, about fifteen miles from our abode, and here I began to study Talmud. The study of the Talmud is the chief object of a learned education among our people. Riches…
Rachel; or, The Inheritance
We had spent the summer at Enghien, in the pleasant Montmorency valley, where every year spring brings along with its fragrant greenery, the choicest Parisian society. Situated on the shore…
Aurelie Werner
The relationship between the lovers had already lost much of its intimacy when the couple was blessed with a thriving son. This event reawakened the count’s feelings of tenderness for the mother of…
Is the Printing Press Harmful? A Rabbi from Sarajevo Responds
How great is the benefit of the printing houses, for thanks to the power of the printing press, the Torah is enhanced everywhere in the world. The rabbis are certainly making the effort to produce…
Letter to the Friends of Lessing (On the Spinoza Conversations between Lessing and Jacobi)
Our friend’s devotion to Spinozism is not to be seen as a mere hypothesis (as the Patriarch in Nathan puts it), postulated simply in order to discuss its pros and cons. Herr Jacobi, a man of…
Report on the Moral and Political State of the Israelites of Algeria and on the Means to Improve It
Among the diverse races of Algeria, the Jewish population merits special attention.
At first glance, one sees a mass of people who comprise approximately one-fifth of the total civilian population…
Tombstone of Isaac ben Hayyim
This tombstone of Isaac ben Ḥayim, who died in 1728, includes (at the top) a pair of deer and a pair of lions, animal carvings that often appeared on Jewish tombstones in Eastern Europe. They…
Ketubbah
This ketubah (marriage contract) from London was written for the marriage of Isaac di Matos-Lopes and Sarah di Matos-Lopes. It also has, as one of its signatories, prominent scholar David Nieto, first…
The Order of Circumcision Prayers
This decorated manuscript of the prayers for a circumcision ceremony was owned by one Joseph ben Samuel. On its title page (not shown) is an unidentified coat of arms decorated with the Order of the…
Portrait of a Man, Thought to Be Dr. Ephraim Bueno
Rembrandt lived in the part of Amsterdam where the artist’s guild (St. Luke’s Guild) was located; by coincidence, it was home also to a number of Jews. His artworks attest to an interest in the…