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.
The Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue, Entrance
Mikve Israel-Emanuel is a synagogue that served the Spanish Portuguese Jewish community in Curaçao (and continues to function today as a Reconstructionist congregation). It is the oldest surviving…
Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed
This edition of Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed was printed in Sabbioneta, Italy by Cornelio Adelkind for Tobias Foà. The twelfth-century work was an attempt to reconcile Aristotelianism with…
Text of an Excommunication
This text of an excommunication, found in David Aboab’s manuscript of Sefer emet ve-yatsiv (True and Certain), chronicles a conflict in the Sephardic congregation of Curaçao. The first Jews arrived in…
Narraçāo da vinda dos Judeos espanhões a Amsterdam (Account of the Coming of the Spanish Jews to Amsterdam)
The illustrious gentlemen, ḥakham R. Mosseh Ury ha-Levi (of blessed memory) and his son, R. Aaron Ury ha-Levi, my father and master: both were residents of Emden, in the province of Oost-Friesland…
Responsum: On a Reluctant Bridegroom
There was a certain man in our country who had become totally impoverished, and who had betrothed his elder daughter to her appropriate mate. During the period of her betrothal—the date fixed for…
Responsum: On Postponing a Wedding
Question 4: Reuben, a young Torah scholar from the city of Tiberias, contracted a marital arrangement with Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Jacob, from the city of Sepphoris. This is the text of the…
Colophon: Seder taharot (Order of Purification)
So said Jacob ben R. Ḥayim Ibn Adoniyahu of blessed memory, after completing the proofreading of Seder taharot, I intended to apologize, since the subject is not habitual, and the source texts are few…
Tsemaḥ David (The Sprout of David): On the Invention of the Printing Press
The printing of books: began [lit. “was located”] in the city of Mainz, by a Christian man named Johannes Gutenberg of Strasbourg, and this was in the first year of the pious emperor, Friedrich, in…
Sifte yeshenim (Lips of the Sleepers): On Citing Authors
I am astonished to see that for reading just the names of the holy books, one receives his reward, as if he had read and studied them all. If so, then one will not make much of an effort to study…
Ḥeshek Shelomoh (Solomon’s Desire)
The book’s name: This book [Song of Songs] is called a “song,” a noun bearing several meanings. First, it denotes music, as in the verse: all the daughters of song (Ecclesiastes 12:4), which means…
Burning Holy Books
Holy books, said my friend, angry,
there’s no such thing. Books,
books: let them talk
to us about books.
It was a hot night.
At noon light rips
through the room, and everything’s clear:
over the…
The Song of the Humble
Music with a light Israeli/jazz groove starts playing. The percussions play along the scene in a question and answer routine as if they were the immigration officer Inquiehush meets…