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.
Derashot ḥatam sofer (Sermons of Ḥatam Sofer)
A sealed Torah was given to us; it is doubtless a Torah of Truth but it is disguised. Every day the Holy One, blessed be He, renews those who study it for its own sake and they find a new taste in it…
On the Emancipation of Women in Jewish Worship
Theology teaches us that when God the Eternal formed man He gave him an extra rib. This rib was destined for the formation of woman in order that this creature, who was to become the rich…
Shalom al Yisra’el (Peace upon Israel)
Upon you, great ones, the rebbes of the Hasidim, who follow the path of the Ba‘al Shem Tov, and of whose glorious name they boast and by…
Book of the Kahal: Materials for the Study of the Jewish Life
An agent of the kahal who is charged with monitoring Jewish cases in the police and in giving gifts to officials is a Jewish middleman.
Jews utilize the art of the middleman not only in trade…
Avodat-Ach
Ninio’s art focuses on putting everyday objects into new contexts, which change their original functions, posing questions about the nature of their reality, by opening them up to new relationships…
The Table As It Is
In The Table As It Is, a tabletop perched on precarious legs and precariously set with bottles of wines and glasses seems about to split apart. Dominey’s sculptures present ordinary objects found in…
The War of the Holy Days
Now, my dear friends, do you see what you’re doing? The Holy Days indulged in arrogant boasting, in envy and hatred and warfare. Hanukkah tried to fight them all and carry the day…
Moving Lights
At the close of Independence Day 1972
a biplane plane rose
in the Tel-Aviv sky at dusk
and on its belly
moving lights flashed:
For health and pleasure eat plenty of poultry
Eat as you should…
Hasidic Motifs
A moon full of shimmering honey,
Exuding joy.
What bird beats in my heart?
Fly away—away, but not alone.
What am I shy? What?
Thick empyrean wine.
I’ll take a wicker bottle,
To the cemetery alone…
Remembered and Forgotten
He turned walking on water into a kind of art. Rarely
getting himself wet. He left the ancient harbor at different hours of the day. At times
before sunrise. Sometimes he’d return minutes later…
Hualing’s Garden in Iowa
Wind bells over the river with an
Indian name: transplanted homelessness
disguised as a transplanted home.
The garden jingles. Odorous sandalwood censers,
kimonos and saris flashing well among
the…
An Affirmation
I am not I
when called to account—
plaster over, dumbly benched
the corrosive ardency
of blinkered identification.
To affirm nothing, a veil
of asymptotic bent,
prattling over-
tunes in the striated…