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 Hiding God
For us, contemporaries and survivors of history’s most terrible horrors, it is impossible to meditate about the compassion of God without asking: Where is God?
Emblazoned over the gates of the world…
The Dreadful Angel
The dreadful angel in me is invisible
today, his screeching almost still.
You startle at its whisper. Is it
someone come to pay a visit
or a grasshopper tapping at the sill?
It’s he. Oh, he is…
Simple Gimpl
Once, at night, after the seven days of mourning, while I lay on the sacks dozing, someone came to me, the Evil One himself, and said to me, “Gimpl, why are you sleeping?”
“What should I be doing,” I…
Hezekiah (Samuel-Kings)
In the third year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, Hezekiah son of King Ahaz of Judah became king. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem…
Birth Amulet (Fürth)
Printed birth amulet. The decorative borders are composed of printers’ devices and decorations that were used by printers in Fürth (Bavaria), so it is assumed that this amulet was printed in that city…
Amulet for Mother and Child
This German amulet is printed with unique designs. The names of the three angels, Sanoi, Sansanoi, and Smangalaf, indicate the use of this amulet as birth protection for mother and child, as…
Printed Amulet (Germany)
Amulet printed on parchment from Germany. The words in this amulet are arranged to form patterns and shapes.
Jacob and the Angel
Jacob Epstein’s primitive style was not to everyone’s liking, especially when it came to his sculptures with biblical and religious themes. The overt sexuality of some of his sculptures also aroused…
Figurine of Female Deity
Figurine of female deity, Tel Batash, 14th century BCE. Similar plaque figurines of naked women, often with breasts and genitals emphasized or with pregnant bellies, were very common in the ancient…
God, Man, and History
[ . . . ] Immanuel Kant once wrote: “The true [moral] service of God is . . . invisible, i.e., it is the service of the heart, in spirit and in truth, and it may consist . . . only of intention.” Thi…
To Know If an Evil Spirit Has Possessed a Person
To know if an evil spirit has possessed a person, utter three times in his right ear:
TsIP"A TsIP"A TRAYY"T GWTAN"T, that is to say: Of the Rock that begat you, you are unmindful, etc. (Deuteronomy 32…
Ketubah between God and Israel for Shavuot
In the Sephardic tradition, a “marriage contract” (ketubah), a symbolic betrothal of God and Israel, is read before the Torah reading on the first day of the holiday of Shavuot, which celebrates the…