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.
Sukkot Celebrations
Between 1723 and 1737, illustrator Bernard Picart partnered with the Dutch bookseller, editor, and publisher Jean-Frédéric Bernard on Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (R…
Yitzchak Rabin / Benjamin Netanyahu
Lavie was a leader of the Tel Aviv School, or 10+ group, artists who were among the first Israeli artists to incorporate pop art, found objects, and collage into their work. In the early 1960s, Lavie…
Takkanot Fez (Regulations of Fez): On Moderating Celebrations
When we were gathered together, we the undersigned, to negotiate the repair of fissures in our city, which is the renowned Fez, with the advice and consent of…
Declarations
Good words of the society of orphan girls of Izmir. In the Name of the Holy One, regulations and new ordinances established for the good governance and with worthy dissemination, with which we must…
Her bitter soul is anguished: For Tishah be-Av
Her bitter soul is anguished, because of her ailing wound.
The city one teeming with people is desolate, the Holy City that she had inherited.
For the glorious, sweet land, tears descend like a…
Compendium of Practical Kabbalah
This remarkable manuscript of practical kabbalah was written in Eastern Europe in the mid-eighteenth century; at the end of that century it was owned by the Radvil Hasidic dynasty. In contrast to…
Midbar Yehudah (The Wilderness of Judah)
We must consider these three things: what great good we had in the past, the great distress and iniquity which we are in today, and…
Colophon: Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah
The great work called Mishneh Torah by the rabbi, our master, Moses ben Maimon of blessed memory, comprises fourteen books.
Were it not that the Lord was with us (Psalms 124:1), the Torah might have…
Shir ha-ma‘alot le-David (A Song of Ascents, of David)
Seek ye out the book of the Lord (Isaiah 34:16), and read The Holy Epistle [so] called to water the flock, go and browse.
Perek be-shir (A Treatise on Poetry)
A compilation containing all the techniques of poetry simply put; covering all the principles, meters, rhymes, correct methods, and true rules; sifted and clarified; solid as a bronze mirror, such…
Beri‘ah ve-Zimrah (Briyo and Zimro)
Zimro, the son of Tovas [ . . . ] was very good-looking, highly intelligent, and a scholar. Now, the king loved him more than any other member of the royal household. He was the leading figure at…
Generation without Memory: A Jewish Journey in Christian America
There are contradictions and ambivalences in our celebrating Thanksgiving. We are recent Americans. It wasn’t the Mayflower that brought our people over here. We know too much about what the coming of…