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.
Lecterns (Jablonów)
These two lecterns are from Jablonów in the southern part of eastern Galicia and may have graced the town’s wooden synagogue, which was built as early as 1674. Carved from wood, and standing on two…
Torah Finials
These silver and filigree Torah finials used by Amsterdam’s Ashkenazic community are shaped like four-tiered towers. They have gilt bells in their arches and gilt urns on their corners and are topped…
Portrait of Jacob Judah Leon Templo
This is one of three known portraits of Jacob Judah Leon Templo, who was famous for his elaborate wooden model of the Temple of Solomon, which he turned into a traveling exhibition and showed and…
Bad Waters
An artist with political and social axes to grind, Garbuz created two images from acrylic, pencils, and spray paint on plywood with the title Bad Waters. Three different scenes are portrayed in this…
Chronicle of Fez
In the year 5464 from the creation of the world. If I were to try to tell the travails and bitter tidings and troubles that we the community of Fez (may God guard it!) endured, time would run out and…
Ma’amarim bi-refu’ah (Chapters on Healing)
For do not interpretations belong to God? There are many kinds of dreams in the world: dreams that are mostly true and close to prophecy, but the sages said that there are no dreams without idle…
Testament (Jerusalem)
Behold, an agency was sent to me from the two groups of the yeshiva heads coming to judgment, in whose hand was a written deed, signed by fit and proper witnesses, that the widow, the aforesaid lady…
Records
Slaughterers and examiners of the meat must be God-fearing individuals who will examine the knife very thoroughly. In any event, trusted men should be appointed to examine the slaughtering knife…
Magid mesharim (Speaker of Truth): On Tikun Leyl Shavuot
The words of the perfect scholar, the divine kabbalist, R. Solomon ha-Levi Alkabetz (may the memory of the righteous be for the life of the World-to-Come):
Know that the pious one and myself, his…
Arbol de vidas, en el qual se contienen los dinim mas necessarios que deve observar todo Ysrael (Tree of Life, in Which Are Included Those Laws Most Necessary for All Israel to Observe)
The will of the creator is that the world should be sustained, expanded, and populated daily by man, whom he shaped for his glory. That is, indeed, why he created this great machine, and…
Ture zahav (Columns of Gold)
When the Lord enlarged the border of the Jewish people, and they increased and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with knowledge of the Lord [see Exodus 1:7; Isaiah 11:9] by the…
For Exorcism
To exorcise any spirit or any demon from a person [is] a kabbalistic power [ma‘aseh merkavah] with which King Solomon, peace be upon him, ruled all the demons. Fast for three consecutive days—Monday…