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.
The Place of the Bible in Israeli Society
The Bible, once at the center of the cultural scene, has become marginalized, its magic has faded. A new Israeli generation no longer believes that, to be considered educated, one must be well-versed…
Against the Shepherds (=Kings) of Israel
The word of the Lord came to me: O mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy, and say to them:
To the shepherds: Thus said the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel, who have been…
How to Draw Guidance from a Heritage: Jewish Approaches to Mortal Choices
The progress made by medical science over the last half century has been astounding. In the area of therapeutic medicine alone, developments have been nothing short of miraculous. […] Life-support…
Revolutions in Halakhah
The process that ultimately enabled women to serve as pleaders in the rabbinical courts began thanks to the initiative of one woman, Ruth Margarit Neiger of Raananah…
Hezekiah’s Prayer upon Recovery from Illness
A poem by King Hezekiah of Judah when he recovered from the illness he had suffered:
I had thought:
I must depart in the middle of my days;
I have been consigned to the gates of Sheol
For the rest…
The Dialogues between Job and his Friends. The First Cycle
Then Eliphaz the Temanite said in reply:
If one ventures a word with you, will it be too much?
But who can hold back his words?
See, you have encouraged many;
You have strengthened…
He Cast a Look and Went Mad
He Cast a Look and Went Mad depicts traditional East European Jews in some sort of religious setting. It invokes in its title the classic talmudic legend of the sage who “looked and was injured” when…
Mortality
Though Jacob Steinhardt came to be best known for his woodcuts depicting biblical and Jewish subjects, this print, made during World War I, evokes the horrors he witnessed on the battlefield. Much of…
Letter of the Persian Governor to King Darius and the King’s Reply
This is the text of the letter that Tattenai, governor of the province of Beyond the River, and Shethar-boze-nai and his colleagues, the officials of Beyond the River, sent to King Darius…
Dispatch of Food
[Greetings, PN,] from [PN].
[No]w, I [sen]t to you, saying: “Do not dispatch to me bread without it being sealed.”
Lo, all the jars are impure. Behold, the bread which [you]
dispatch[ed] to me…
Tefillin Bag of Leib Millman
This velvet tefillin bag is embroidered on one side with images of flowers; the reverse side contains the date and the imperial double-headed eagle, a symbol of both the Austro-Hungarian and the…
El Tiempo Celebrating 400 Years of Sephardic Life in the Ottoman Empire
El Tiempo (Time) was the first Ladino-language newspaper published in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey) and the longest-running Ladino newspaper in the city, with a run of almost sixty…