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.
A White Poet
For H. Leyvik
New York.
A white poet stood on the hundred-and-fourth floor.
The sky and an iron city
Engaged in a conversation.
A thirsty “forever” marched on
In bewildered
Disorganization.
New York…
The Non-Jewish Jew
There is an old talmudic saying: “A Jew who has sinned still remains a Jew.” My own thinking is, of course, beyond the idea of “sin” or “no sin”; but this saying has brought to my mind a memory from…
Toward an “Order of B’nai Or”: A Program for a Jewish Liturgical Brotherhood
We are basically dissatisfied with “the world.” Our dissatisfaction stems mainly from the fact that as well-adjusted members of it we would have to live as ardent consumers…
Letter of Rabbinic Appointment to the City of Posen
When the leaders of the people were assembled, all the tribes of Israel together, on the evening of the twenty-first day of Adar 5572, to oversee the affairs of the general community and the needs of…
The Love of Zion
Azrikam grew in his father’s house like a thorn, becoming uglier as he grew. Tamar, however, grew more beautiful day by day. The contrast between these two children was not only noticeable in their…
Introduction to the Commentary on Numbers—Me’am Lo’ez
The introduction to the first volume of this work, which you already have, explains that one must know what mitzvot God commanded us to perform, and what he obliged us to avoid, to find…
Portrait of Menasseh Ben Israel
This engraving of famed intellectual Menasseh ben Israel, made by Shalom Italia, is one of the earliest known portraits of a Jewish thinker by a Jewish artist. Italia highlights Menasseh's scholarly…
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…