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.
Four Biblical Scenes
These four etchings were made by Rembrandt van Rijn for Menasseh Ben Israel’s book, Piedra Gloriosa (Glorious Stone), a messianic treatise. Clockwise from upper left, they illustrate the biblical…
The Wonder-Working Rabbi of Barcelona
During the weeks that Eleazar spent in pious contemplation in old Asia, the people of Barcelona took pains to persecute the Jews. It was they, once again, who made it hard for Spanish merchants to…
Sefirotic Diagram of the First Man
According to the colophon, Natan Hammerschlag’s Ilan de-adam kadmon (Sefirotic Diagram of the First Man) was copied from the writings of Ḥayim Vital, the most prominent disciple of Isaac Luria…
Monish
Life is like a river;we are fish.The water’s wholesome and freshand we would swim forever,but for a black figureon the riverbank.There Satan stands,in his handsa fishing rod,and catches fish.With a…
Todah w’simrah (Music of Thanksgiving)
For decades, my efforts have been directed at purifying the old modes [die alten Weisen]. Through [general] use and arbitrary treatment they have suffered tactless changes and distortions. I…
Dod Mordekhay (Uncle of Mordechai)
Before we write the answers to the wise man’s questions we will cite the questions he posed in his writings, so that the answers can be positioned opposite the…
The Book of Israel
God, Robin and me had the funniest time trying to decide. I mean it was bizarre. I suppose we had always assumed we would do it, but then, well, when you actually think…
In a Nutshell
Credo in a kind of
American jewish Hamlet-like
bagel, too round for action
yet leavened enough by contact
with the near-dead past—you call it
landscape, I call it history—to provide
a layered vantage…
Germans, Journals, and Jews/Madison, Men, Marxism and Mosse: A Tale of Jewish-Leftist Identity Confusion in America
[…] the Madison Left experience, at least in the early and mid-1960s, was never simply an American experience. It was more jumbled, at least more composite—like America itself? In my own not untypical…
Modern Trends in Orthodoxy
Diversity is a characteristic feature of Orthodoxy today. Orthodox leaders and movements inspire the extremes of the Jewish political spectrum, from the supernationalism of Meir Kahane…
An Alternative Al Heyt
For the wrong we did before You by listening to voices at odds with what we knew was right;
For the wrong we did before You by not listening to voices telling us unpleasant truths;
For the wrong we…
Letter to King Artaxerxes and the King’s Reply
And in the time of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and their colleagues wrote to King Artaxerxes of Persia, a letter written in Aramaic and translated.
Aramaic: Rehum the commissioner and…