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.
Sheyris Yisroel (Remnant of Israel)
The German holy community of Amsterdam was founded in the year 5396 [1635/6]. This I discovered in a few pages of a book written by Maharam Maarsen, one of the first German Jews in Amsterdam…
Me’or ‘enayim (Light of the Eyes)
Now it is not my intention to be a wiseacre when I show people that some rabbinic statements should not be taken literally. Belonging to this genre, is the story of Og uprooting a mountain the size of…
Ḥazon le-mo‘ed (Vision for an Appointed Time): On Daniel
The king assigned them portions of food and wine, each day on its day, from the king’s food and wine. They were to raise [the boys] three years; afterwards some of them would stand before the king…
Shalshelet ha-kabalah (The Chain of Tradition): History of Late Antiquity
In the days of Antigonus, in about 3160 of creation, roughly 52 of the second rule of Ptolemy II over Egypt…
Tsene rene (Go Forth and Look)
King Solomon (may he rest in peace) said: The righteous man walketh in his integrity [Proverbs 20:7]. Now this means that a man should follow God’s…
Nishmat Shabbetai ha-Levi (The Breath of Shabbetai ha-Levi)
Everything proceeds from above, from the world of emanation, excepting no point in the lower world. And even a tree, and a stone, and everything comes from above; and this is the procession of…
Tratado da Imortalidade da alma (Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul)
Earlier on we have clearly shown that the animal soul does not consist of blood and how much less so the human soul, since the latter is an incorporeal substance, invisible and incorruptible, whereas…
The Prayer of Queen Esther
Meanwhile the queen, wracked by internal anguish,invites the king and Haman to her banquetand in joyous hope awaits the sacred streamof divine mercy form the holy fount-head;her humble soul bowed low…
Commentary: On Pirke Avot
Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; and the prophets transmitted it to the men of the Great Assembly. They said three…
Engraved Clam Shell
Engraved tridacna (clam) shells like this one from Arad seem to have been used as cosmetic containers in the Near East and Mediterranean worlds in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE. This…
Memoirs of a Jewish Colonist
I. Of Pimps, Prostitutes, and Other SeducersWe saw some ten richly-dressed women, accompanied by fat-bellied men in top hats, standing at the green metal gate of the immigrants’ hotel. Through the…
Diary Entry: On Being a Jew
January 8. Lecture by [Leo] Fantl on Goldhaupt, “he tosses the enemy like a barrel.”
Insecurity, dryness, tranquility, in these everything will pass.
What do I have in common with Jews? I have…