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.
Tomb of Cyrus
Tomb of Cyrus, King of Persia (reigned 559–530 BCE). The tomb stands in Cyrus’ capital, Pasargadae (near today’s Shiraz, Iran). See the Cyrus Cylinder for Cyrus’ role in the return of Judeans from…
The Golem’s Circle
Rabbi Eleazar opened the palm of his hand
and let the fertile, virgin earth escape
He took pure water from the mountain spring
recited the two hundred and twenty-one alphabetical combinations
and…
City Gate, Gezer
City gate, Gezer, Early Iron Age (1200–980 BCE). This gatehouse complex had benches for participants in legal procedures and other public affairs. In the book of Ruth, Boaz goes to the city gate in…
An Orphan in History: Retrieving a Jewish Legacy
In the spring of 1961, I flunked an exam that would have enabled me to write an honors thesis. In reality, it was a minor failure—I was spending most of my time at the Crimson building, where I was…
Volute Capital from Ramat Rahel Palace
The palm and the palmette are common iconographic elements in ancient Near Eastern art, appearing, for example, in ivory decoration (see Ivory and Bone Carvings and Engraved Seashells) and in Assyrian…
The Heavens and the Earth: A Self-Portrait of the 1948 Generation
The tale of the Generation of the Land is a sad tale. Reflecting about the source of the depression that the situation in Israel instills in me, I can only ascribe it to expressions of ethnocentric…
Local Notes
The Moshava of Pardes-Hannah is the place I come from, but since I left it, my eyes have been turned away from it, as if I couldn’t look at it. Until I went to the army, the Moshava was a whole place…
I’m Not Rappaport
Nat:Look at you! Look what you’ve become! Queen of the Condominiums, peasant skirts for two hundred dollars, betrayer of your namesake—Clara:Goddamn name—Nat:Clara Lemlich, who stood for something—Cla…
Two Ibexes
In this detail from the left side of a pithos (storage jar) from Kuntillet Ajrud, two ibexes are eating the flora of a schematic tree, all set above a striding lion. These common motifs are typically…
Silver Signet Ring
Silver signet ring with image of galloping griffin, a hybrid creature that consists of feline body and legs, avian head and wings, and serpentine tail. Found in a burial cave in the Ketef Hinnom…
Rattles
These hollow, spool-shaped terra-cotta objects from Beth Shemesh would hold one or more pellets (often small pebbles) that when shaken would produce a sound. They have been considered babies’ toys…
Dietary Laws: Animals and and Impurity
The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them: Speak to the Israelite people thus:
These are the creatures that you may eat from among all the land animals: any animal that has true hoofs, with…