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.
Nahal Oz
Nahal Oz, located in the Negev close to the border of the Gaza strip, was founded in 1951 as Israel’s first Nahal settlement. These were established by soldiers to provide a first line of defense…
Laying the Pipes of the National Water Carrier from the Sea of Galilee to the Negev
This photograph by Moshe Gross is very much in the tradition of Zionist and Israeli iconography, which favored images stressing the heroic aspects of Zionism and the “new Jews” who were building…
Orpheus: A History of Religions
Why does the name of Orpheus, “the first of the world’s singers,” as Lefranc de Pompignan called him, appear on the title-page of this volume? Because he was not merely “the first singer,”…
Souls of Chaos
The conventional pattern of living, based on propriety, on the requisites of good character and conformity to law—this corresponds to the way of the world of order. Every rebellion against this…
God’s Gifts
My most pious songs have I written
On rising from my sinful bed.
God has given me a wealth of sins,
And God alone has saved me from my sins.
Translated by David Soeterndorp.
The Lithuanian Yeshivas
These students, who poured into the Yeshivah from near and far, what were they seeking? And what was the Yeshivah seeking to give them? Did the students undertake to complete their course work at…
First Address to the Knesset
It is with a feeling of deep reverence and consecration that I rise to open the Constituent Assembly of the State of Israel, the first Knesset Israel of our time in this eternal…
Eulogy for Roi Rotberg
Yesterday morning Roi was murdered. He was lulled by the quiet of the spring morning and did not notice those lying in wait in the furrow.
Today, let us not cast aspersions at the murderers. How can…
Women of Israel, or, Characters and Sketches from the Holy Scriptures
As the first and most beautiful relationship in which woman is undeniably necessary to man—the object of his first affections, to whom he owes all of cherishing, happiness, and health, from infancy to…
Sefer ha-midot (Book of Virtues)
Noble-mindedness is a very fine character trait in the soul of man, and it extends in many directions: primarily in three, which are, noble-mindedness in wisdom, noble-mindedness in power, and noble…
Portrait of Jacob Sasportas
Born and raised in Oran, Algeria, the talmudic scholar Jacob Sasportas served as rabbi of Tlemcen. Forced to flee Morocco due to political unrest, in 1647 he embarked on a life of wandering. In 1664…
Ketubbah
This ketubah (marriage contract) from London was written for the marriage of Isaac di Matos-Lopes and Sarah di Matos-Lopes. It also has, as one of its signatories, prominent scholar David Nieto, first…