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.
Bathhouses and Boundaries in Roman Jewish Life
In m. Avodah Zarah 3:4, the rabbis consider how Jews may join in Roman civic life without crossing into idol worship or losing their religious identity.
The Talmud Begins with a Question
The Babylonian Talmud opens by questioning the Mishnah itself, revealing a tradition built on inquiry, scripture, and layered reasoning.
Law as Story and Prayer in Leviticus Rabbah
Leviticus Rabbah 27:6 turns a legal question into narrative, showing that the Shema‘ can be recited anywhere.
On the Gathering of the Aggadah
The written Hebrew agadah [lore and legends transmitted in rabbinic texts] is the primary literary form that was dominant for several centuries in the world of unbounded folk and individual creation…
Letter from Fromet to Moses Mendelssohn
Berlin, 18 July 1777 Berlin, 13 Tammuz 5537
Dear Moses, may you live,
I hope that my letter will find you happy and in good spirits in Königsberg. We are all, thank G-d, well and alive, and when you…
Torah Finials (Corfu)
These silver Torah finials are from Corfu and were made between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by an artist whose initials were A.Z. They were used in the Scuola Greca Synagogue, which…
Black Flakes
Snow has fallen, with no light. A month
has gone by now or two, since autumn in its monkish cowl
brought tidings my way, a leaf from Ukrainian slopes:
“Remember it’s wintry here too, for the…
Todesfuge (1944–45)
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening
we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink
we shovel a grave in the air there you won’t lie too cramped
A man lives in…
Jonen dalim (He That Has Mercy on the Poor)
Offstage, Edom and Jonen Dalim.Edom:Chase that filthy beggar away from my door!Jonen:God punishes those who despise the poor.Israel:Edom sees my tatters and feels disgust…
Orḥot ‘olam (Paths of the World)
On the existence and nature of a great and awesome, holy world, which is situated beyond the equator, and whether it is possible that there is a settlement south of this equator, called zo…
Colophon: Pentateuch with Rashi and Other Commentaries
From the day that God confused all the languages of the land [see Genesis 11:9], through the bitter and rapid exile of the expulsion from Spain, since then all good things have ended for us; our glory…
Autoemancipation
Among the living nations of the earth the Jews occupy the position of a nation long since dead. With the loss of their fatherland, the Jews lost their independence and fell into a state of decay…