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.
Buying a Calf
One calf, two years old, white, the top of its humpback is cleft (?). Haraa, daughter of Talimmu, sold to Neriyama, son of Ahiyakam, for 23 shekels of white silver, 1/8 per shekel impure, of average…
Isaiah’s Vineyard Poem
Let me sing for my beloved
A song of my lover about his vineyard.
My beloved had a vineyard
On a fruitful hill.
He broke the ground, cleared it of stones,
And planted it with choice vines.
He…
Seasons Ketubah
Each corner of Mickie Caspi’s Seasons Ketubah represents one of the four seasons. The traditional text is framed by a mosaic of heart-shaped flowers and encircled by a quote from the Song of Songs.
Samson’s Riddle
Then Samson said to them, “Let me propound a riddle to you. If you can give me the right answer during the seven days of the feast, I shall give you thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of clothing;…
Dreams
When Vittorio Matteo Corcos painted this portrait of his probable paramour Elena Vecchi, depictions of modern and confident young women were not uncommon in literature but were still rare in the…
Koheleth’s Attempts to Find Meaning in Life
I, Koheleth, was king in Jerusalem over Israel. I set my mind to study and to probe with wisdom all that happens under the sun.—An unhappy business, that, which God gave men to be…
Blessing in Burial Cave at Khirbet el-Kom (Makkedah) #3
This inscription was written by someone who was apparently hiding in the cave. For a photograph of the inscription, see Hamsa-like Hand in Khirbet el-Kom (Makkedah) Tomb.Uriyahu the governor wrote it…
About an Earlier Letter, Troop Movements, and a Letter from a Prophet
Your servant, Hoshayahu, sent to inform my lord, Yaush: May YHWH cause my lord to hear tidings of peace and tidings of good. And now, open the ear of your servant concerning the letter which you sent…
Pogrom
Issachar Ber Ryback painted Pogrom during the Russian Civil War, when waves of pogroms were occurring in Ukraine and other areas in the former Pale of Settlement. In the foreground a slain man…
A Prayer (?) from Kuntillet Ajrud
[ . . . May] He lengthen their days and may they be sated . . . recount to YHWH of Teman and His asherah . . .
[ . . . because(?)] YHWH of the Teman, has shown them(?) favor, has bettered their da[ys…
Sennacherib’s Annals: The Campaign against Judah
As for Hezekiah, the Judean, I besieged 46 of his fortified walled cities and surrounding smaller towns, which were without number. Using packed-down ramps and applying battering rams, infantry…
Der Shokhet
Der Shokhet (The Ritual Slaughterer) is one of a set of thirty lithographs that Ryback published in 1923 in a book memorializing the Jewish communities destroyed during World War I and in the…