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.
I am your God and Lord
I am your God and Lord
Who with infinite power
Freed you from Egypt
Where you lived in suffering
And harsh despair.
Do not revere
Foreign gods before me,
And make no trophies
In the likeness of the…
Letter to Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen
“I, too, have authority, the authority of the Lord, blessed be He, of the Shekinah and all the members of the Heavenly Academy.”
[Padua, 16 March 1730]
Oh, thou great Prince, lofty pillar, Gaon R…
Letter to Yemenite Chief Rabbi Shalom Iraqi
To the city of Yemen, Sheikh Shalom, on the 4th of Shevat [9th January 1742] from the Constantinople officials, may the Lord protect them.
The son of a valiant man, who had done mighty deeds, of…
Shete yadot (Two Hands): Or Torah (The Light of Torah)
The first “finger” is called Or Torah (The Light of Torah), as it consists of my notes on the Torah. Now, these notes will be useful for all people, but will provide their fullest benefit only to…
Shirat dodi (Song of My Beloved)
“An accepted custom in Israel has the status of a biblical command” [see Tosafot on b. Menaḥot 20b], and we are required to study it [see, e.g., b. Megillah 28a], in order to…
Sha‘agat aryeh (The Lion’s Roar)
What does this man [who contemplates the giving of the Torah] think that Moses our master, may peace be upon him, sat and did for forty days and forty nights when he stayed with the Lord on…
Protector of Women
Please listen to my words,
Wise, honest, and beautiful women
For my riddle is complete:
Against your faithful crew [of women]
Old men
Raise your shame to the stars
While I protect you,
Defend you…
The Plea
O living and terrible God, replace my prison, this round pit, by a full moon and a goblet. Pray, turn the darkness of my hell into a shining light, and this dwelling-place of dusk into an orchard, a…
History: A Novel
[…] Among such divergent opinions, poor Iduzza didn’t dare formulate any view on her own.
To the many mysteries of Authority which frightened her there had now been added the word Aryans, which she…
Wonderful, Wonderful Times
Café Sport is another scene. A scene, because that is where the artists and intellectuals go to be seen. Taking part is what matters, not winning. It is like sport, which is where the café got its…
Childhood
Adèle sometimes used to take me to church in Montrouge, where I made the same gestures as she did…gestures which didn’t seem to me to be very different from those required by pure politeness…the hand…
The Counterlife
I was out of the cavern no more than a minute, taking a last look around the square at the minarets, the moon, the domes, the Wall, when someone was shouting at me, “It’s you!”
Standing in my path was…