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.
Statutes
- No one shall seek permission to become a master, unless he has it in writing from the Jewish Elders of Prague that he is native of the place, and he shall previously furnish the Jewish Elders with a…
Magen ve-tsina (Shield and Bulwark)
The ten halakhic questions raised by a certain individual directed against the Oral Law, and several of the commentaries upon it, have reached us. I have not needed to carry out a great deal of…
Midrash ḥemdat yamim
During the seventeenth century, Shalem Shabazī wrote deeply spiritual, kabbalistic poetry that couched his subject— the love of God—in the erotic language of Arabic (and Hebrew) love poetry. His poems…
In her grace
In her grace, an awe-inspiring woman musters a holy and treasured people,
Each dawn and each evening she gives me recompense,
She is my bow and she is my sword and in her my heart is redeemed.
She is…
Kehunat Avraham (The Priesthood of Abraham): On Psalm 23
If the Lord shepherds me in the wilderness, I will find that my cup runs over for meWith vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; There my soul will be satisfied and live.A Psalm…
Tombstone (Padua)
Tombstone of Shifra Tamari (d. 1565), Padua, Italy. In the early modern period, most Jewish tombstones in Italy were Italian Renaissance in style. Hebrew epitaph poems, like the one on this gravestone…
Higayon be-kinor (Melody of the Lyre)
The Argument of the Sermon: The sermon in its main argument will open…
The Story of the Passing of Joseph Süss
Be it known that there was a man in Stuttgart in the state of Württemberg, who became ever greater in the stubbornness of his heart and his pride, in his wealth and his wisdom, and he was called…
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…
Tombstone Inscriptions (Prague)
Neḥama wife of Shalom Uri
Buried on Sunday, the 11th of Tevet 5337
This stone is a witness between us:
That death has climbed up into our window:
And eclipsed the…
Tombstone (Prague)
Tombstone of Hendl bat Eberl Geronim, wife of the Court Jew Jacob Bassevi von Treuenberg (1570–1634), in the Jewish cemetery in Prague. The Hebrew date on the top part of the stone indicates that she…
Alte Synagogue (Berlin)
Built by the non-Jewish architect Michael Kemmeter, the Alte Synagoge (Synagogue) was the first edifice in Berlin built specifically to serve this function. Originally known as the Heidereutergasse…