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.
Letter to Judah Leib Gordon
Kovno, Thursday, 20 Heshvan 5629 [5 November 1868]
His Honor, the Great Sage and Sweet Singer of Israel,
Judah Leib Gordon, greetings!
My dear esteemed gentleman! While I was still in Suwalki…
Vivian Grey
I am not aware that the infancy of Vivian Grey was distinguished by any extraordinary incident. The solicitude of the most affectionate of mothers, and the…
Braendel
[ . . . ] Braendel dragged the poor woman into the smoky room, which stank of sweat, beer, and wine, and cried out in a loud voice, “Aren’t you ashamed, you children of honest Jews, to drink and…
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…
Pirḥe ha-aviv (Spring Flowers)
This small volume which I now present to you, my fellow readers, is an offshoot of the numerous saplings that I have planted for myself over the course of many days, nay years; for ever…
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…
The Association “Concern for the Needy”
When Berdichev, that famous commercial city, began, in the last few years, to fall from its high estate and the number of newly impoverished but respectable inhabitants kept increasing, I started to…
Melukhat Sha’ul (The Kingdom of Saul)
Saul [upon returning from smiting the Amalekites]. Jonathan and his other sons.Saul:My fury still burns within my heart like a flame of fire!Even after I have smitten him, I have found no place…
The Queen of Sheba
Die Königin von Saba (The Queen of Sheba) is Karl Goldmark’s most famous opera. Premiering in Vienna in 1875, its imaginative plot revolves around a love triangle involving the Queen of Sheba, Assad…
Super flumina Babylonis
Charles-Valentin Alkan composed this setting of Psalm 137 (“By the rivers of Babylon”) in 1859, the same year that his friend Franz Liszt composed a setting for the same biblical verses. Unlike Liszt…
Torah Ark from the Great Synagogue of Tykocin, Poland
The mannerist and baroque Great Synagogue of Tykocin, Poland, was built in 1642. The synagogue was damaged during World War II and in the years following, but was restored in the 1970s, including its…