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.
Jewish Folklore in the Middle Ages
The science of Folk-lore tries to explain in a scientific way the origin, growth and development of popular literature; it discovers the sources from which the popular fancy has drawn its materials…
On Prayer
Of all religious phenomena, there are few which, even when considered merely from the outside, give such an immediate impression of life, richness and complexity as…
The Bar Mitzvah Discourse
In this lamplit scene, the brightest spots are the mother’s dress and the white tablecloth on the table. (The mother and a maid at right, coming out of the kitchen, are the only women in the room.)…
Return of the Prodigal Son
The Christian parable of the prodigal son, from Luke 15:11–12, was a favorite subject of artists from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century. A son squanders his inheritance and is reduced to…
National Autonomy for the Jews?
In 1905 a group of Jewish Social Democrats left the party in Galicia in order to found their own organization of Jewish Social Democratic workers. The executive of the international Social Democratic…
Movements and Their Crises
New and hitherto unknown words have entered our dictionary. These words can now be heard at gatherings, and even more in private conversations, and sometimes we read them in the press. And if, until…
An Original Jewish Cookbook
Take 18 oz. of wheat flour, 18 oz. of butter, 18 oz. of sugar, 1/2 oz. of yeast, 3 eggs and 2/3 of a cup of hot milk, 5 1/2 oz. of finely chopped succade [candied citrus…
From Babylonia to Zion
With the first morning light I got up and looked out on the landscape of the Jerusalem Hills. I looked toward the nearby border. One of my relatives told me how the well in our house…
Tsava’at ha-Rivash (Testament of Rabbi Israel Ba‘al Shem Tov)
In order to understand what is katnut (“smallness”) and what is gadlut (“greatness”), consider this example: If one studies Torah without understanding, he is in a state of…
Dissertation on Medical Policy Concerning Certain Foods Which Are Prohibited in the Pentateuch
All nations have been subject, in their authors, as in all other things, to significant important changes. Inclinations, needs, and the relations of their subjects change, as do the passions of the…
On the Jewish Question
The German Jews seek emancipation. What kind of emancipation do they want? Civic, political emancipation.
Bruno Bauer replies to them: In Germany no one is politically emancipated. We ourselves are…
Portrait of Jacob Sasportas
Born and raised in Oran, Algeria, the talmudic scholar Jacob Sasportas served as rabbi of Tlemcen. Forced to flee Morocco due to political unrest, in 1647 he embarked on a life of wandering. In 1664…