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 Ruling on the Printing of the Zohar
The earth made noise as did the heavens, and the doorposts are shaking at the voice crying out that it would be wrong to publish hidden and sealed materials and to break through the fence established…
A Letter to Chief Rabbi Raffael Natan Tedesco of Trieste
Most Distinguished Sir,
The undersigned, your most humble servant, is a wretched woman of twenty-three years of age. I was married for five and a half years to this Mr. Lucio Luzzatto, [but] I was…
Rejoice with Jerusalem
Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her,
All you who love her!
Join in her jubilation,
All you who mourned over her—
That you may suck from her breast
Consolation to the full,
That you may…
Responsum: On an Inheritance Dispute
Question: A rabbi died, leaving all his assets in the rabbinic court’s control until his heir came to take possession, and his closest heir, who ought rightfully to inherit, is in Portugal, living as…
Omer Calendar
This omer calendar, marking the days between the holidays of Passover and Shavuot, is still used at Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia. The letters stand for H=Homer (Ladino for Omer); S…
The Book of Jerusalem Journeys
In 1930, Chaim Elazar Shapiro (Spira), the Hasidic rebbe of Munkacs, Czechoslovakia (today, Mukachevo, Ukraine), traveled by rail to Vienna and Trieste and by ship to Alexandria, where he and his…
Responsa of Achiezer
[ . . . ] During the Middle Ages and the decrees of the year 5408 [1648], when our brethren the children of Israel believed with real faith in the Almighty and in His…
Testament (Jerusalem)
Behold, an agency was sent to me from the two groups of the yeshiva heads coming to judgment, in whose hand was a written deed, signed by fit and proper witnesses, that the widow, the aforesaid lady…
Noda bi-Yehudah (Known in Judah)
When I parted from my father and journeyed forth from his home to Brody, I joined up with friends, God-fearing men of purity; we built a bet midrash for…
Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table): Laws of the Synagogue
One may not behave frivolously in synagogues and study houses, including exhibiting such behaviors as laughter, teasing, and idle conversation. One may not eat or drink in them, nor may one…
On the Seer of Lublin’s Court
When one comes to Lublin he should imagine to himself that Lublin is Eretz Israel, that the courtyard of the study house is Jerusalem, that the study house is the Temple Mount, that his apartment is…
Portrait of Shabbetai Tzvi
Shabbetai Tzvi was the central figure of a messianic movement that swept the Jewish world in the mid-seventeenth century. Born in Izmir (Smyrna), as an adolescent Shabbetai Tzvi embarked on the study…