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.
Ruth
In the days when the chieftains ruled, there was a famine in the land; and a man of Bethlehem in Judah, with his wife and two sons, went to reside in the country of Moab. The man’s name…
Almanac for the Year 5675
The Molad is Wednesday evening, 10 minutes and 9 halakim on 6 [6:10.9 pm]
Iyar 5675—April 1915—Taurus—(29 days)
[Hebrew Date]
[Day of the week]
[Christian Date]
[Islamic Date]
1st
Thursday
Se…
My Oriental Diary
I did not sleep; I let myself be rocked by the inexorable battle of the waves; soon the monster of seasickness flashed in my innards, but I overcame it. A god held sway in me; he triumphed: it was the…
Anti-Slave Prayer
Blessed and powerful God, eternally [ . . . ] universal ruler, Lord of Hosts; we have come to beg of you and pray for the safety of the state, as you ordered us through your prophet: “Seek the welfare…
Papyrus with Inscription Mentioning Jerusalem
This is a certificate that, if authentic, accompanied a shipment of wine to Jerusalem from Naarah or Naarath, probably the place north of Jericho mentioned in Joshua 16:7. The sender is the…
In her grace
In her grace, an awe-inspiring woman musters a holy and treasured people,
Each dawn and each evening she gives me recompense,
She is my bow and she is my sword and in her my heart is redeemed.
She is…
Samuel
There was a man from Ramathaim of the Zuphites, in the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph, an…
Collection of the Words of the Lord
I had a vision in Salonika, as though the following words were said to somebody: Go lead Yakov the wise into the rooms and when you and he come to the first room, I admonish you that all the doors and…
Neḥmad ve-na‘im (Nice and Pleasant)
Nicolaus Copernicus, from [Polish] Prussia, was a great man, who was more proficient in the field of astronomy than all the wise men of his age. Indeed, all the wise men of our time unanimously attest…
Otsar ha-ḥayim (Treasury of Life)
On the preservation of one’s health when going to sleep and upon awakening. Our master, of blessed memory, wrote the following in laws 4 and 5 [Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Sefer ha-mada, hilkhot de‘ot…
La certeza del camino (The True Path)
Great hazards of the world are these rational brutes, the avaricious rich, as they are…
Seder Eliyahu zuta (The Minor Order of Elijah)
The Sultan Selim loved the Jews very much, for he realized that with their help he could strike nations and kill mighty kings. [ . . . ] And it came to pass on the third day, when the Sultan…