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.
Elephantine Letter (Request about the Rebuilding of the Elephantine Temple)
Elephantine letter, dated to year 17 of King Darius II (November 25, 407 BCE). See Request about the Rebuilding of the Elephantine Temple) and Darius and Xerxes, Kings of Persia. The letter is…
The Ratification of the Covenant
Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of the Lord and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying, “All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do!” Mos…
The Pilgrimage Festivals
Observe the month of Abib and offer a passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, for it was in the month of Abib, at night, that the Lord your God freed you from Egypt. You shall slaughter the…
Remarks by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace
At an age when most youngsters are struggling to unravel the secrets of mathematics and the mysteries of the Bible; at an age when first love blooms; at the tender age of sixteen, I was handed a rifle…
The Nazirite
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: If anyone, man or woman, explicitly utters a nazirite’s vow, to set himself apart for the Lord, he shall abstain from wine…
A Property Dispute Settled by Oath
On the 18th of Kislev, that is the 17th day of Thoth, year 21 (of Xerxes the king), the beginning of the reign when Artaxerxes the king sat on his throne, Dargamana son of Khvarshaina, a Khwarezmian…
The Kindling of the Hanukkah Lights
The Kindling of the Hanukkah Lights is one of the many works portraying Jewish family life and scenes of Jewish domestic observances by German Jewish artist Moritz Oppenheim. Though painted in the…
Jotham’s Fable
All the citizens of Shechem and all Beth-millo convened, and they proclaimed Abimelech king at the terebinth of the pillar at Shechem. When Jotham was informed, he went and stood on top of Mount…
Sermon dans un oratoire israélite (Sermon in an Israelite House of Prayer)
Édouard Moyse’s paintings of Jewish religious life earned him the nickname “the painter of rabbis.” His paintings often depict an idealized Judaism not situated in a specific place or time. The…
A Proper Time for Everything
A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven:
A time for being born and a time for dying,
A time for planting and a time for uprooting the planted;
A time for slaying…
Curse in Burial Cave at Khirbet el-Kom (Makkedah) #6
Cursed be Hagab! Son of Hagab
To YHWH of the Hosts
Translated by Anson F. Rainey from Shmuel Aḥituv’s Hebrew edition.
Assignments Completed and Watching for Fire Signals
May YHWH cause my lord to hear, this very day, tidings of good. And now, according to everything my lord has sent, thus has your servant done. I wrote on the sheet according to everything you sent to…