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.
The New York Intellectuals
We were living directly after the Holocaust of the European Jews. We might scorn our origins; we might crush America with discoveries of ardor; we might change our names. But we knew that but for an…
Le-‘eyne kol Yisra’el (In the Sight of All Israel)
They distort the words of the living God. It is a clear Torah lesson, as the sages have taught: “Whosoever speculates on four things, a pity for him! He is as though he had not come into the world.”Th…
Don Iudá
Just then Don Iudá took off his coat and greeted us one by one. My mother, out of breath as we’d been in such a hurry to come, explained everything in short choppy phrases.We children would stay there…
Ferocious Animals
Benleví:[while he speaks, Sara enters with the slippers] All they do in the synagogue is talk about Ishmael.Sara:[bent over, putting on the slippers] They seem to forget that they’re there to talk to…
Regulations
Bylaws of the Holy Society for Torah Study of the holy community of Kraków, instituted by our rabbis, the Rema [Moses Isserles], ha-Baḥ [Joel Sirkes], known by the title of his book, Bayit ḥadash [Ne…
Chatham Square Cemetery
Among the graves in the burial ground of Congregation Shearith Israel, in New York City (the oldest Jewish cemetery in the United States) is that of Cantor Gershom Mendes Seixas (1745–1816), the first…
Tombstone Inscriptions (Thessaloniki)
Here is a man who revered The Name with loveWhose name was known For his generous spiritHe gave to charity To failing soulsFrom his pocket and his wealth Until…
Tombstone of Torah Scholar
This tombstone of a Torah scholar from Sieniawa, Poland includes motifs and symbols often found on Jewish tombstones in Poland, such as a crown and palm trees. Other common symbols on Jewish…
Tombstone of son of Ephraim Cohen
Tombstone of a son of Ephraim Cohen, who was buried in a Jewish cemetery in Cochin, India. The first Jewish communities in Cochin were established as early as 1000 CE, and legends claim that Jews were…
Tombstone of Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen
Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen (ca. 1670–1749) was a rabbi in Altona. His gravestone bears a relief of open books and is inscribed with the titles of his works, each playing on a scriptural phrase involving…
Tombstone of Mordechai Margaliot
Moses Mordechai Margaliot (d. 1617) was a member of a family descended from the illustrious medieval scholar Rashi. Margaliot served as a rabbi in Kraków. He was buried in the cemetery of the Rema…
Tombstone of Samson Wertheimer
Samson Wertheimer (1658–1724) was the chief rabbi of Hungary and Moravia, a court Jew, and Habsburg financier. His grave in the Viennese Seegasse cemetery is marked with an elaborately decorated…