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.
Colophon: Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah
And we, in our humble opinion, state that it was done well, although the labor was very great, and it ran very quickly, and according to our sharpness of wit at that time we examined it well, for we…
Sefer ha-zikuk (The Book of Expurgation)
1. Whenever the term idolaters appears, and it is not clearly referring…
Sefer yitnu (Book of “They Shall Offer”)
It is known that one who lacks books lacks knowledge, for a man’s knowledge is limited in its reach by the reach of his books; and there is no artist without tools. Many new books came…
Asleep in songs and lullabies
Asleep in songs and lullabies was my heart, while I was dreaming, imagining myself amidst poets, as eloquent and intelligent as the finest wine yeast.From my drunken slumber an illustrious man awoke…
Three Picture Poems
The turning wheel runs round and round.
It opens and closes the exit of my gate.
Noisily it turns for ruin and destruction.
My head is split, my entrails spilled.
It chases and it catches…
With devout accents, the beautiful Hebrew woman
With devout accents, the beautiful Hebrew woman
Implored the exalted choirs for their grace,
Indeed, midst heavenly stars, in sacred fires,
She holds supreme minds happily in her grip:
Upon the sound…
Shirat ha-yam (The Song at the Sea)
Then did Moses and the Children of Israel sing this song (Exodus 15:1). Before we explain the words of this song, it is appropriate to clarify its poetic structure. I maintain that we, the Israelite…
Responsum: On Reciting the Shema‘ in the Presence of Bareheaded Women
‘Arukh ha-shulḥan, oraḥ ḥayim § 75:7And now come and let us shout out against the licentiousness of our generation, on account of our many sins. For it has now been many years that the daughters of…
Responsum: On Civil Marriage
I set the Lord before me always. Karcag [Hungary], eve of the holy Sabbath, the week of [the reading of] Koraḥ, 5659 [June, 1899]. Abundant blessings and rejoicings to my dear friend, the eminent…
Responsum: On Civil Marriage
Question: Whether in those marriages contracted under civil marriage law—without betrothal according to the rite of Moses and Israel—the woman can leave without a get [Jewish religious writ of divorce…
A Zionist Manifesto
To the Jewish People: The second of November, 1917, is an important milestone on the road to our national future; it marks the end of an epoch, and it opens out the beginning of a new era. The Jewish…
Nerves
A perfumelike smell, which came from the low clumps of acacia trees, or “mimosas,” as some liked to call them, scented the air of the small Jewish colony in southern Palestine. In the expanse of sky…