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.
The Tale of a Rabbi and His Only Son
Once there was a rabbi who had no children. Finally, he had an only son. He raised him and married him off. The son used to sit in an attic room and study in the manner of rich men and he always…
The Stolen Son: A Contemporary Tale
The Israelites spent the rest of the day celebrating this festival of thanksgiving in their homes as a second Purim, with tears of sadness and joy, and by the time the sun set, the…
Sefer ḥeshbon ha-nefesh (Book of Moral Accounting)
[ . . . ] 2. When you stroll along the riverbank, you find an entire plain filled with reeds and bulrushes, all of which are standing erect, one adjacent to the other, and none of them…
Responsa hatam Sofer, Orah hayim 36
Indeed, in the countries where we reside, where the gentile women walk about bareheaded, but our mothers did not go out like that and were most careful on that score, concerned as they were about…
She Would Be a Soldier, or, the Plain of Chippewa; An Historical Drama in Three Acts
Scene I. A Valley with a neat Cottage on the right, an Arbour on the left, and picturesque Mountains at a distance.Enter from the cottage, Jasper and Jenkins.Jenkins:And so, neighbour, you are…
Der Thurm zu Babel (The Tower of Babel)
Der Thurm zu Babel (The Tower of Babel) is a one-act opera based on the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis. It premiered in Königsberg (today, Kaliningrad) in 1870. Its composer, Anton Rubinstein…
Tombstone Inscriptions (Istanbul)
Mikri (“little one”) Wife of Yehuda Hamon (d. 1642)
Yesterday I was playing on the earth, in my husband’s embrace, like a tiny lamb, And an angel came and preyed upon me in his wrath…
Ketubah (Amsterdam)
Adorned with a lush vegetative frame and putti (cherubs) carrying banners, this ketubah (marriage contract) marks the wedding of David and Dona Rachel Curiel, prominent members of Amsterdam’s…
Karaite Ketubah (Crimea)
While ketubot (marriage contracts) are usually written in Aramaic, Karaite ketubot are written in Hebrew. They are often pentagonal in shape, most often with a pointed bottom. This example has a…
High Synagogue (Krakow)
The High (Wysoka) Synagogue was built in a Renaissance style in the mid-sixteenth century in the Kazimierz district of Kraków. It is the third-oldest synagogue in Kraków. This synagogue owes its name…
Portuguese Synagogue, Amsterdam
In 1670, Amsterdam’s Portuguese Jewish community commissioned a new synagogue, which, when finished, was the largest in the world. The master mason Elias Bouman (ca. 1636–1686), a non-Jew, who had…
Mayse-bukh (Book of Stories)
The Mayse-bukh (Book of Stories), a collection of more than two hundred and fifty stories in Yiddish, was popular among Jews in Western and Eastern Europe from the sixteenth to the nineteenth…