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.
Her bitter soul is anguished: For Tishah be-Av
Her bitter soul is anguished, because of her ailing wound.
The city one teeming with people is desolate, the Holy City that she had inherited.
For the glorious, sweet land, tears descend like a…
Shoshan yesod ha-‘olam (Lily of the Foundation of the World)
To remove a demon [sheyd] from the body of a man or woman, or anything into which a male or female demon has entered
Take an empty flask and a white waxen candle, and recite this adjuration in…
Compendium of Practical Kabbalah
This remarkable manuscript of practical kabbalah was written in Eastern Europe in the mid-eighteenth century; at the end of that century it was owned by the Radvil Hasidic dynasty. In contrast to…
Midbar Yehudah (The Wilderness of Judah)
We must consider these three things: what great good we had in the past, the great distress and iniquity which we are in today, and…
Colophon: Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah
The great work called Mishneh Torah by the rabbi, our master, Moses ben Maimon of blessed memory, comprises fourteen books.
Were it not that the Lord was with us (Psalms 124:1), the Torah might have…
Shir ha-ma‘alot le-David (A Song of Ascents, of David)
Seek ye out the book of the Lord (Isaiah 34:16), and read The Holy Epistle [so] called to water the flock, go and browse.
Perek be-shir (A Treatise on Poetry)
A compilation containing all the techniques of poetry simply put; covering all the principles, meters, rhymes, correct methods, and true rules; sifted and clarified; solid as a bronze mirror, such…
Beri‘ah ve-Zimrah (Briyo and Zimro)
Zimro, the son of Tovas [ . . . ] was very good-looking, highly intelligent, and a scholar. Now, the king loved him more than any other member of the royal household. He was the leading figure at…
Generation without Memory: A Jewish Journey in Christian America
There are contradictions and ambivalences in our celebrating Thanksgiving. We are recent Americans. It wasn’t the Mayflower that brought our people over here. We know too much about what the coming of…
Israeli Blues
“Secular is a terrible word”; “secular is a word I don’t like,” “there is no such thing as a secular Jew”—these clichés are common among absolutely secular intellectuals when they discuss problems of…
Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue Music in Nineteenth-Century Reform Sources from Hamburg: Ancient Tradition in the Dawn of Modernity
Let us begin with the most basic questions: Can oral traditions of music constitute a reliable source for historical research? While this question is applicable to most music…
Hot Tea and Sponge Cake at 10:00 P.M.
My mother and father were an embarrassment to me, up until high school. They were much older than my friends’ parents (my dad was forty-seven and my mother was forty-four when I was born), and they…