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.
Ḥemdat yamim (Choicest of Days): On Rosh Ḥodesh
[ . . . ] Based on the above reasoning, you can see how wrong those people are who fast on the day of the birth of the new moon, as the whole reason for…
I’ll make a little chamber
Let us make, I pray thee, a little chamber on the roof; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick .…
Wounds of Love
I heard your voice, my love, and all my senses throbbed and my soul quivered in dismay. The light of my face darkened, my sun was covered with shadows, and my eyes streamed like rivers.
The arrows of…
The Celestial Race
When you see the planets and constellations circling heaven at all hours, do not imagine that they are speeding, like a runner in a valley, to show off their prowess. No, it is a sublime cause that…
The Old Whore’s Lament
Where are the merchants who used to chase after me to purchase my favours? O malevolent Time! Nowadays, they abhor my company; when I call for them, there is no answer. How has my merchandise been…
Shreds of Earth
On a night like this if a shudder were to shake your flesh as though a nightmare
had severed your sleep I could have risen and quietly walked to the kitchen
to write you a poem that would bring you…
Parnassus
Technically I was a man.This spindly squeaky thing with the Adam’s-apple accent was, by virtue of being thirteen and bar-mitzvahed, a technical man.And so the phone call came: they needed a tenth for…
Lamelekh Seal Impression with Winged Sun Disk
Many of the seal impressions, with the inscription lamelekh “(Belonging, or pertaining) to the king,” followed by the name of a city, feature a two-winged figure, probably a winged sun disk…
Double-pipe Player
On this ceramic double pipe from Tel Malhata, the musician uses one hand on each pipe to control pitch. Usually women played the double pipe, but in this case, it is a man. This double pipe is…
Assurbanipal Feasting in Palace Garden
Assurbanipal Feasting in Palace Garden, relief from the palace of Assurbanipal (reigned 669–627 BCE) in Nineveh. The king and his queen are surrounded by ornamental and fruit trees, palms, and vines…
At Home in America: Second-Generation New York Jews
[…] Second-generation Jews, like their immigrant parents, succeeded in developing a nucleus of Jewishness, defined through secondary associations, that made being Jewish an impelling reality for their…
To Be a Jew in France in 1982
Confronted by difficult problems after 1945 (reconstruction of a community life after the physical and material losses of the Second World War, integration of successive and ever more numerous waves…