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.
To Be of Use
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek…
Description of His Career as a Revolutionary Soldier, 1777–1783
Georgia
City of Savannah
Sheftall Sheftall of the said city, being duly sworn, saith:
That some time in the latter part of the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy seven, or the beginning of…
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…
Lament of the Daughter of Judah
O God of Hosts, our God from of old,
Was it for this that You selected our ancestors from days of yore
That You took their descendants as an inheritance for Yourself
To set them up as the target of…
License Authorizing Daniel da Costa Gomez to Be a Ritual Slaughterer
These letters of mine may be presented by the witnesses of the Lord, and they will be vindicated—to the effect that the young and delightful young man Daniel, whose utterances were genuine, appeared…
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…
Responsa Hatam Sofer: Orah hayim 154
The reason for this is that if they see Torah scholars, and those who repair the breaches in Jewish religious practice, voiding the Torah in accordance with the exigencies of time and place, they will…
The Religious Philosophy of the Jews
Note: The word “religion” is not biblical. It is taken over from paganism, where it does not include the factor of freedom. People disagree as to whether it is derived from religere or relegere; about…
Ha-tsofeh le-vet Yisra’el: Tashlikh (The Observer of the House of Israel: Tashlikh)
You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea: You will show faithfulness to Jacob. . . .
—Micah 7:19–20
In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, while I was walking along the…
Me’irat enayim (Light of the Eyes)
There is a severe admonition addressed to every individual within Israel not to add any precept on his own initiative onto those precepts which are written in the Torah, and…
The Semitic Nations
With the same character, with which the individual human being is born, with the same he descends into the grave. The kindly disposed does not become ill-disposed, the judicious does not become…
Editor’s Note in Sha‘are mizraḥ (Gates of the East)
We gratefully acknowledge the signs of munificence shown to us by His Majesty’s government which has officially licensed our periodical, Sha‘are mizraḥ. We understand that this benevolence of His…