Featured Places
The Brooklyn Papyrus (c. year 2021)
A seven-foot-long Mitzri papyrus, now sitting in the Brooklyn Museum, lists 95 household servants belonging to a Mitzri noblewoman named Senebtisi. At least 45 of them have clearly Semitic names. One name on the list, Šp-ra, is mamash a match for "Shifra," one of the meyaldos ha'ivriyos in Parshas Shemos. A routine Mitzri government document, and it has the names our Avos carried, written down by Mitzri scribes who had no idea who would one day be reading their records.
The Merneptah Stele (c. year 2556)
Found in 5656 at Thebes. A three-meter black granite monument that Pharaoh Merneptah had carved to brag about his military campaigns. Among the nations he lists, carved in hieroglyphs and marked as a nation rather than a city, is the name "Yisroel." The shem of Klal Yisroel, carved in stone by a Mitzri Pharaoh over three thousand years ago.
The Pilgrimage Road
A 600-meter stepped stone street running from the Breichas HaShiloach to the southern sha'arim of Har HaBayis. The derech our Avos walked every Yom Tov. The same stones, the same steps, the same aliyah toward the Beis HaMikdash that hundreds of thousands of Yidden made each year for Pesach.