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.
Five Polemics Concerning Women
Enough, you fools and idiots, enough!
Why do you come to me with sage advice?
Are you still infants? Are you soiling still
Your diapers and sheets with excrement…
Responsum: On the Prohibition of Teaching Karaites
On the ban pronounced at a gathering of some members of the community in the city of Constantinople, together with some town representatives, in the synagogue of the community of Constantinople. It…
Fasciculus trium verarum propositionum astronomicae, astrologicae et philosophicae ([Compilation] of Three True Propositions: Astronomical, Astrological, and Philosophical)
To the Most Serene Great Prince of Etruria, Hero and Admirable Man, Cosmo the Third
To the Most Serene Great Prince.
In this era of ours, Most Serene Great Prince, when the various branches of…
Tosafot Yom Tov (The Additions of Yom Tov)
“Moses received the Torah from Sinai” [m. Avot 1:1]:
R. [Ovadiah] from Bartenura has explained this to mean “from the One revealed at Sinai.” And there, when God revealed Himself at Sinai, Moses…
Proposal for the Establishment of a Jewish College
The following are the statutes, laws, and regulations which, with God’s help, are ultimately to be established in the institution dedicated to Torah [ . . . ] and to the sciences which our master, the…
Responsum: On Postponing a Wedding
Question 4: Reuben, a young Torah scholar from the city of Tiberias, contracted a marital arrangement with Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Jacob, from the city of Sepphoris. This is the text of the…
Minute Book
In the Name of the Blessed God Amen
Whereas on or about the Year 5466 [1706] certain wholesome Rules and Restrictions have been made By the then Elders of our Holy Congregation, to Preserve Peace…
Naboth’s Vineyard
Act II, Scene 3Jezebel [Goes up to meet Ahab]:You have seen a conversion yourself? Do tell me!Ahab [Bewildered]:Oh Jezebel! I am dying! I cannot breathe![Sinks into a chair.]What is this? Am I seeing…
Legend of the Chalice
“Is it true, dear mother,What grandfather tells us?That a chalice stands in heavenBefore the throne of God?“And with each blow struck usAt the hands of cruel men,Does a tear fall in our chaliceFrom…
Motl, the Cantor’s Son
It did our hearts good to see Vaytshepl. It did Pinye too much good. “Why, it’s Berdichev!” he shouted. “Children, I swear, we’re not in London at all, we’re in Berdichev!” The next thing I know he’s…
Whither?
I see his melancholy profile as though through a mist, through the curtain of thick cloud that descended on him in his lifetime and darkened his bright trail with a multitude of vain fictions and will…
Israelite and Judahite Exiles Named in Assyrian and Babylonian Texts
Israelites in Assyrian Exile (last third of eighth century BCE):
Ahiyau, an “archer,” Nineveh
Hoshea, a slave, Nineveh (680 BCE)
Neriyau, “chief of accounts,” Gozan
Paqaha (Pekah), an estate manager…