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 Her Husband
Many good, blessed and pleasant years, may they surely come to you and to your head and hairs! To the hands of my lovely, dear, beloved husband, the pious and prudent, worthy R. Loeb, may his Rock and…
Der brantshpigl (The Burning Mirror)
[ . . . ] And when a woman must go out, she should not push through the men and should keep her distance from large groups of men, since this is a great lewdness, and she should not go out…
Darkhe Moshe (The Ways of Moses)
There was a man in Kraków, and his name was Israel, who built with a devoted spirit a synagogue to the Lord, and who was in his generation similar to “the man who says to Ucal and Ithiel” [i.e., like…
Yado ba-kol (His Hand Against Every Man)
A song I engraved on the tombstone (matzevet) of my master, my father, may he be remembered for the life of the world to come. The holy seed shall be its stock (matzavtah; Isaiah 6:13), is it not the…
Letter of Conversion
My brothers, my children, and my friends know this: I understood with great clarity that the True One, whom I alone have known for many generations and for whom I have strived so much, wants me to…
Letter to Yemenite Chief Rabbi Shalom Iraqi
To the city of Yemen, Sheikh Shalom, on the 4th of Shevat [9th January 1742] from the Constantinople officials, may the Lord protect them.
The son of a valiant man, who had done mighty deeds, of…
Las alabanças de santidad (Praises of Holiness): Spanish Translation of Psalms
Having with fervent desire sought to reflect on the meaning of our sacred scriptures according to their original and true meaning—since, being the word of God, in this lies all of…
Respuesta a un tratado que escrivio un docto predicante de la religion reformada (Response to a Treatise Written by an Erudite Preacher of the Reformed Religion)
The main foundation that you propose for your doctrine consists of the sin of Adam, in which you believe sin was perpetrated by all of the human species, which was contained in Adam, and of the sole…
A Tale of Mainz
I’ve been told that years ago a rich man lived in Mainz as a leader of the Jewish community. He had a beautiful wife, who, however, died, leaving him their son. A short time…
History: A Novel
[…] Among such divergent opinions, poor Iduzza didn’t dare formulate any view on her own.
To the many mysteries of Authority which frightened her there had now been added the word Aryans, which she…
Wonderful, Wonderful Times
Café Sport is another scene. A scene, because that is where the artists and intellectuals go to be seen. Taking part is what matters, not winning. It is like sport, which is where the café got its…