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 Shulḥan ‘Aruk: Enduring Code of Jewish Law
Shulḥan ‘Aruk, a term taken over from early rabbinic exegesis in the Midrash and applied to one of the most influential, truly epochal literary creations of Jewish history, has a double or even triple…
Ben-Oni (Son of Sorrow)
I do not lift my supplicating hands,
O King, O Lord, O Father, yon on high,
To You whose throne dwells in the starry lands,
I neither plead nor yet Your might defy.
I do not ask of You to end my…
Nogah ha-tsedek (Radiance of Justice)
Better still than this is that they should recite the “Verses of Praise,” Yigdal and Adon Olam, and the other exalted prayers on Sabbaths and festivals to the accompaniment of the harp and the sound…
Sefer musar haskel (Book of Moral Lessons)
We translated Musar haskel for the following five reasons:
The first is that our hearts have become so hardened that instruction does not easily penetrate them. This is why we wrote this educational…
The Earliest Extant Minute Books of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, 1728–1786
At a meeting of the Elders and Parnassim this day Mr Heyman Levy paid the fine for refusing serving Parnass Last year, it was at the same time voted by…
The Cry of the Poor Jews of Izmir
We, the poor of Israel, inhabitants of the city of Izmir, may God protect it, slaves of our lord and king, Sultan Abdülmecid, may his name be praised and long live his reign, [are] oppressed and…
End of Day XXXV
Like many of Nevelson’s best-known works, End of Day XXXV is made of wood painted a matte black, a color she characterized as “visually weightless.” Many of her sculptures were built from found…
Displaced
In the 1970s, Gitlin was one of several Israeli artists in New York who began to challenge the conventions of minimalist sculpture that favored a stark aesthetic and the use of materials such as iron…
Discorso circa il stato de gl’Hebrei et in particolar dimoranti nell’inclita Citta di Venetia (Discourse on the Condition of the Jews, and in Particular Those Living in the Illustrious City of Venice): On the Jewish Population
As for the number of the Jews, one cannot precisely determine it, not even having firm knowledge of the places in which they dwell. Regarding the ten tribes that were captured by…
Me’amets koaḥ (Strengthener of Power)
Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to praise the One who created us in His honor, for the great goodness that He bestowed upon us. For from this day forward we will not fear the multitudes of people…
Though one God created us: For Lag b’Omer
This poem says that wellbeing [shalom] is ours, since we have God as our king, and we have the Torah, whose paths are wellbeing, even though we have acted wrongly and have been trapped by bad hatred…
Ḥemdat yamim (Choicest of Days): On Rosh Ḥodesh
[ . . . ] Based on the above reasoning, you can see how wrong those people are who fast on the day of the birth of the new moon, as the whole reason for…