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.
Scuola Greca (Corfu)
Built in the seventeenth century, the Scuola Greca is a synagogue located in the area of the ghetto in which Jews were confined in 1622, in a neighborhood still known as “Evraiki” (Jews). It is the…
Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins
The children's book Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins was written by Eric Kimmel and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Featuring the legendary Jewish hero Hershel of Ostropol pitted against goblins…
Untitled
Shachar began to mold and cast human body parts from life early in his career. Here, hands carry the body of a young girl wrapped in a sheet, perhaps alluding to the Virgin Mary supporting the dead…
Tit ha-yaven (The Miry Clay)
Now we shall begin to describe the confrontation of the King of Sweden with the King of Poland. First, the aforementioned King of Sweden came to the holy community of Posen [Poznań], a major Jewish…
Tsemaḥ David (The Sprout of David)
Thus spoke David, son of Isaac, son of Eliezer, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Menahem, son of Isaac, son of Obadiah, son of Isaac—known as “the wealthy one”—son of Elijah, known as “the holy…
Magid mesharim (Speaker of Truth): Lessons from the Magid
Is your excessive talk beneficial to you? [ . . . ] And do you consider it proper that you peruse the [weekly Pentateuchal] portion twice in Hebrew and…
Testament (Verona)
We, the undersigned, came in to visit the honorable lady Rosa Romanina, widow of R. Moses Guastalla of blessed memory, a resident of Rivarolo, and found her sick, lying on her bed, but her words and…
Responsum: On Resorting to Non-Jewish Law Courts
And now we see that the number of servants breaking away from their Master, our Heavenly Father, increases daily, in that whenever they have a quarrel with their Jewish brothers or sisters they have…
Takkanot (Regulations)
They that went before were affrighted (Job 18:20); [they took] a path that many have trod, princes most honorable (Numbers 22:15); the customs of our fathers are in our hands [b. Shabbat 35b], and it…
Letter
And so let it be known to your Excellency what happened to the letter that your Excellency sent me with the etrogs [citrons]. The letter was not handed to me until the [week of the] Sabbath of Vayetze…
Letter from Jerusalem
How goodly are the tents of Jacob, the dwelling-places of Israel (Numbers 24:5), the synagogues and study houses in Jerusalem, that from morning to evening and from midnight to morning are never…
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…