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.
Bet Yosef (The House of Joseph): On Marriage Contracts
Question: Reuven has a single daughter, soft and delicate, whom he married to Ḥanokh ben Judah with a dowry of a thousand sultanish. The bride is twelve years old, and in her father’s home she was…
Decree: On Bridal Processions
Text endorsing regulations concerning the playing of instrumental music and other entertainments, and the night-time bridal procession, drafted by me with the powerful endorsement of the sages—may…
Lev aryeh (Heart of a Lion)
In my opinion, there is no person in this world, whether he is a sage or a…
Sefer ha-tsava’ah (Book of the Testament): Rituals on Dying and Mourning
My beloved wife Esther Sheindel, may you live long, since we, on account of our affection, once made a pact, as it were, that if one of us dies, the other should implore God’s mercy for the other to…
Hanhagot ve-tikunim (Conduct and Regulations)
These are the words of the covenant [see, e.g., Deuteronomy 28:69], the twenty-four enactments that the people of action of the holy society, which is in the holy city of Safed, may it be built and…
Confession
Prosecutor’s evidence: In Herrera on the twenty-first of May in the year 1500, before the lord inquisitors in the general inquisition.
Witness: Inés, daughter of Juan Esteban, residing in the town of…
Letter about the Validity of the Messiah
After greeting, I accepted the letters, but we do not have the time to copy the expositions, as you wanted. Due to the fact that the late, wise, and pious Judah Ashkenazi, when he came to Jerusalem…
Letter from Jerusalem
Now I shall come to fulfill your desire by writing to you at length about the customs of the residents of the land of Israel; for although I also wrote to you by way of the pilgrims, and I sent them…
Yiddish Translation of Isaac Aboab’s Menorat ha-ma’or
Moses Frankfurt said: The holy Torah tells us that the Holy One commanded Moses to interpret the Torah very plainly (Deuteronomy 27:8), to explain it clearly in seventy languages so that all nations…
La-yesharim tehilah (Praise for the Upright)
Reason and Righteousness in the Field.Reason:Righteousness, beloved of my soul, may your heart be of good courage. Gird yourself with vigor, for, the further salvation seems to be from…
The Life of Alexander Zilber
He and I rarely spoke of God. He didn’t want to listen to another one of my blasphemous speeches, and I knew it was like talking to a brick wall—you could never convince him of anything.
But once—by…