Sources & Methodology

Shoresh is proudly pro-Israel, and it is built to be checkable. Nothing here asks for trust it has not earned: every scripture is quoted from a named edition, every hard text is graded, and the same standard is applied to both faiths. Where a claim is contested, it is flagged as contested. This is the opposite of propaganda, and the receipts are below.

The two badge systems

Why a verse gets a label, and why the labels mean different things for each tradition.

A fair comparison has to measure the right thing. Hadith vary wildly in reliability, so Islamic texts are graded for authenticity: did Muhammad really say it? Jewish biblical law is canonical and undisputed as text, so its hard verses are graded for practice: is this still done? That single difference, what a tradition does with its hard texts, is the real story the Quran, Torah and Compare pages tell.

Islamic texts القرآن · الحديث

Graded for authenticity, by classical isnad scholarship.

AuthenticSound chain. Quran, or hadith graded sahih by the major collectors.

Authentic · disputedReliably transmitted, but scholars argue over meaning or context.

WeakA flawed or broken chain (da'if). Circulated, but shaky.

FabricatedRejected as forged (mawdu'). Shown only to debunk it.

Jewish texts תּוֹרָה · תַּלְמוּד

Text is canonical; graded instead for living practice.

In forceStill observed today as law or core ethical principle.

HistoricalA real command, but bound to a time, place or temple long gone.

Not practicedOn the books, but rabbinic law set conditions that retired it.

DefunctA dead letter. Never carried out in practice, by design.

The rules the writing holds to

Five commitments, applied on every page.

Verify everything at the source. Scripture is pulled from named editions and APIs, not from memory or from someone's screenshot. Quotes are checked against the original wording.
Nothing is fabricated. No invented quotes, no doctored citations. A text that turns out to be forged is labeled Fabricated and used only to set the record straight.
The same standard for both faiths. The hard texts of the Torah get the same honest treatment as the hard texts of Islam. Fairness is not weakness; it is the point.
Contested is labeled contested. Where scholars disagree or a claim is interpretive (for example, ancient-era maps), it is flagged, not smoothed over.
Proud, not hateful. The site celebrates a people and a homeland. It does not traffic in mockery of anyone's faith, and it draws the line between criticism of ideas and contempt for people.

The sources

Texts, datasets and primary documents the site is built on.

Hebrew Bible & Talmud

The open Sefaria library (JPS and other editions) for Tanakh and rabbinic texts, via its public API.

Textual integrity

The Hebrew Bible has been transmitted almost unchanged for two thousand years, as the Dead Sea Scrolls attest. The Unbroken Text →

Qur'an

Arabic and the Sahih International translation via alquran.cloud.

Hadith

Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, drawn from an open hadith dataset and verified by text, then graded against classical scholarship.

Primary legal documents

Balfour, the Mandate, UN 181, Resolution 242, the founding documents and charters, via the Avalon Project at Yale Law School.

Maps & geography

Modern coastline and borders from public-domain Natural Earth survey data. Ancient-era territories are illustrative, based on historical scholarship.

Today's news

Aggregated from pro-Israel and Israeli outlets (Jerusalem Post, Algemeiner, Israel National News and others). Each item links back to its original publisher.

Definitions

The IHRA working definition of antisemitism; the Genocide Convention; Additional Protocol I on the laws of war.

Glossary

Terms defined for this site and cross-checked against standard references. Read the glossary →

A note on honesty. This is a personal heritage project, not a newsroom or an academic journal. It has a point of view and does not hide it. What it will not do is lie to make the case. If you find an error, that is a bug, not a feature: the goal is to be right, then to be persuasive. Modern borders are survey data; ancient maps are interpretive and labeled as such.