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.
Sefer kiryat arba
There is a matter well known and widely publicized among all those who have come through the gates of our city, Constantinople [Istanbul], may God preserve it. . . . [I]t occurred about two years…
Why Our Forefather Adam Had to Bite the Apple
Dear reader, take out a sheet of paper and a pen and follow my calculations. This measure will not be pointless, as the numbers we will be dealing with are rather enormous, and mistakes can be easily…
Silk Bag for Eruv Bread
An eruv (or eruv ḥatserot, merger of domains) is a symbolic expansion of an area outside a single home into a larger private domain. Within that eruv, certain activities prohibited in the public…
Moses and Aaron with the Ten Commandments
Moses and Aaron with the Ten Commandments was painted by Aron de Chavez, a painter and engraver of Dutch origin, for the synagogue in Creechurch Lane (the first post-medieval synagogue in London) used…
Kiddushin and Wedding Ceremony
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…
Once upon a Potty—Boy
Illustrations from Alona Frankel’s children’s book, Once Upon a Potty. First published in Hebrew in 1975, Frankel wrote the book for her son to learn to use the potty. An English version featuring a…
The Eruv
An eruv is a symbolic boundary around a certain area, which extends the boundaries of the home on the Sabbath, when carrying objects in public spaces is forbidden by Jewish law. Calle used the concept…
Tsiltsele shama‘ (Resounding Cymbals)
And therefore, with that, I, the young man, said that I will make a little book of my “Hymns for the Cantor with My Tunes” for the public benefit. Perhaps the one who makes use of them will do so for…
Bine’ot deshe’ (In Green Pastures): On Passover
On the eve of the fourteenth [of Nisan], after reciting the evening prayer, you must light a wax candle and recite the blessing on removing your leavened foods. Then you must search in your room and…
Sha‘ar ma’amare Rashbi (The Gate of the Sayings of R. Simeon bar Yohai)
Human prayer that is properly intended is above, in the supernal depths, according to the secret of the point of Zion; and there is the secret place of the holy…
Discourses on the Ecclesiastical and Civil Polity of the Jews
We have already said, that wheresoever a competent Number of those of our Nation, were settled into a standing Community, the first thing they took care of, was the Erection of a publick School. Now…
I hope in the Lord at all times
I hope in the Lord at all times,
And to the fearsome, awful One,
I cry: Grant redemption, Thou
Who dost not slumber, dost not sleep.
My soul, all weary and exhausted,
Longs and yearns,
For it…