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.
A Seder Night
A medieval rabbi barely escapes from a blood libel accusation at his own Seder table in this prescient nineteenth-century story by the famous German Romantic poet Heinrich Heine.
The Penal Recruit
“One morning—it was the fourth day of Hanukkah (the holiday of the Maccabees), when we were readying ourselves to celebrate the victory of our heroic ancestors, which was the capture of Antioch—the…
The Book of the Governing of My Household
The man should not purchase meat until he has taken counsel with his wife to see which type of meat she wants him to take, so that the wife cannot later say that it is dark meat…
On the Language of the Jews Who Lived in Ancient Russia
In our previous studies we attempted to prove that the first Jews in southern Russian were not Germanic, as is claimed by Graetz and other German scholars, but rather Bosporan and Asian, as they…
The March 17th Decree
Laws are always tainted by the passions and the prejudices of the legislator.
—Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws
In 1807, Mordecai Blum, his wife Rebecca, and his son David were living in a…
A Story about a Rabbi, Followed by a Letter (in Kol mevaser)
One of the most important things that the government has introduced in Russia to improve education among Jews is the decree that each community must choose a…
Doors to the Bimah, Rema Synagogue (Krakow)
The Rema Synagogue, named after the famous rabbi and scholar Moses Isserles (known by the Hebrew acronym “Rema”), was built in 1553 in the city of Kazimierz (today a district of Kraków). It was…