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.
Building the Tabernacle
When Moses had ascended the mountain, the cloud covered the mountain. The Presence of the Lord abode on Mount Sinai, and the cloud hid it for six days. On the seventh day He called to…
Satan in Goray
It was Rabbi Benish’s practice to say his afternoon and evening prayers by himself in his study. When the news reached his ears he hurried to the prayer house. But it…
Sefer luḥot edut (Tablets of Testimony)
For it is not against me that these men have sinned, for what am I and what is my life? My days have passed like a transient shadow, and fly away as does a dream—like a dream upon…
Response to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and…
Crimes against Persons
These Exodus verses form part of the Hebrew Bible's legal framework, addressing personal status and punishments for crimes against different social classes.
The Definitive Orange on the Seder Plate Story
The creator of the popular ritual of placing an orange on the Seder plate describes exactly how this innovation arose, its intended significance, and the problematic erasure of its origins.
Portrait of Eva Frank
Despite gender restrictions, Jewish women played central roles as religious leaders in the early modern period. Meet the female leader of one of the most controversial cults in Jewish history.
The Holy Fire
The Holy Fire, one of the greatest examples of religious resistance in the Warsaw ghetto, explores a theological explanation for Jewish suffering during the Holocaust.
Yizkor, 1943
An elegy to the Jews deported from the Warsaw ghetto from a Jew hiding on the “Aryan” side of the city.
Heder Riddles and Puzzles among Lithuanian Jews
A peasant was transporting a large cart of hay. He had to pass through a low gateway, but the cart couldn’t pass under it. People advised the peasant to wear glasses with magnifying lenses, so that…
In my cottage was I one day
In my cottage was I one day merrily
Despite the Fortune full of treachery.
“What are you doing?” Providence asked me.
“Why are you obsessed only with this life?
You must also know of the…