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.
In the Negev Plains: A Play in Three Acts
Abraham:We only have a few minutes, and we have to decide whether the kibbutz should keep fighting, despite the army’s withdrawal, while we’re surrounded. It must be clear that any decision, one way…
The Stone Quarry
Nissim Levy dodged out through the back fence. He said goodbye to Danino, but instead of running away, he stood still, not far from there, and tried to pick up some words from the…
The Seagull
On a turquoise sea sails a ship. A sharp-eyed gull flies around the mast, swooping down from time to time to see what is happening on the ship, in all its decks. The boat has three decks and a bridge…
God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children
God has pity on kindergarten children,
He pities school children—less.
But adults he pities not at all.
He abandons them,
And sometimes they have to crawl on all fours
In the scorching sand
To reach…
To the Sons Who Were Banished from Their Fathers’ Tables
My father, my father, how you stood over me
Against childhood sorrows and the agony of years.
You raised children, father, and also great hopes,
and in return received nothing but despair and woes.
…
Igeret aliyat ha-neshamah (Epistle on the Ascent of the Soul)
You will assuredly regard it as wondrous, and it will gladden your heart that I too regarded as wondrous the vision vouchsafed to me by the Almighty in relation to the aliyot “ascents”—wondrous things…
Ketav yosher (Epistle of Justice)
Has he had the temerity to speak perversely against the foundations of the faith and of the Torah, and mocked the words of our sages of blessed memory recorded in the Mishnah and the Gemara, or has he…
Rational Judaism
According to the rabbinic view, as soon as a boy has completed his thirteenth year he is required to fulfill all the ceremonial laws, although previously he was excused from some, was not permitted to…
On the Emancipation of Women in Jewish Worship
Theology teaches us that when God the Eternal formed man He gave him an extra rib. This rib was destined for the formation of woman in order that this creature, who was to become the rich…
Light for the Path
We, the entire assembly of the congregation of Israel, believe that the Torah that is in our possession today is exactly the same as was written by Moses our master, peace be on him. From then until…
La Buena Esperansa (The Good Hope)
Hamburg, July 7. (Personal communication) In Smyrna, a newspaper will now be published in the Jewish-Spanish language commonly spoken there, entitled La Buena Esperansa. We have the prospectus dated…
A Polish Jew
This depiction of a Polish Jew first appeared in a book, Neu-eröffnete Welt-Galleria (New Gallery of the World), published in Nuremberg in 1703. Its 101 plates by Caspar Luyken included portraits of…