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.
Family Chronicle
At that time, this story [parashah] was written: a great event happened to the Jews, which caused downfall such as never had been in the world before and never would occur again. They came before the…
Historia de’ riti Ebraici (History of the Jewish Rites): On the Sabbath
- Jews hold the Sabbath, above all other feasts, with the greatest veneration on account of it being named so often in the Scripture and being ordered…
Sermon: On the Holy Land
The three problems that I first asked are explained in regard to all of that which I have said. The first: Why is it called the “Holy Land” and the “Holy Temple”? This is according to the fact that it…
Yiddish Translation of the Bible
Should we not cry and weep that until now our scholars have not concerned themselves to provide us with a 24 [i.e., Bible] in Yiddish, arranged according to the simple meaning of the text, word for…
Dissertaciones sobre el Mesías (Dissertations on the Messiah)
One must not close one’s ears to the heretic, as the orthodox can easily open his eyes. For this reason, pressure and punishment should never be used against any religion. Debates are useful. But…
Nomologia o discursos legales (Nomology, or Legal Discourses)
If, in order to understand the human laws, we utilize the explanations and glosses made by the…
The Prisoner of Desire
Caged in a city of refuge, unredeemed, though the High Priest is already dead; kept alive by the hope of being ransomed; at all times manacled in the chains and bonds of love; struck on the cheek…
I’m in a rage, so angry that I don’t know what to do
I’m in a rage, so angry that I don’t know what to do
because of what just happened when I went out with a few
good friends to take a walk in town, this lovely Sabbath day.
We joined a crowd of rowdy…
My Father’s Leaving
When I came back, he was gone.
My mother was in the bathroom
crying, my sister in her crib
restless but asleep. The sun
was shining in the bay window,
the grass had just been cut.
No one mentioned…
Lithuania
…I remember a woman
who sat on the pot where the apples cooked in the cold
basement, her face black from smoke. And here, near this brick
building with a red tile roof, is one of our family, Mausha
V…
Plaque Figurine of Pregnant Woman
In this terra-cotta plaque figurine from Tell Beit Mirsim, 6 inches (15 cm) high, the pregnant woman’s arms cradle her belly and her navel and genitalia protrude. Incisions indicate the eyes, the hair…
Bullas from Jerusalem
The backs of many bullas, like those shown here from the City of David in Jerusalem, have impressions of the strings that once tied the rolled document and marks from the papyrus fibers of the…