Getting Started With the Sefaria API

The Sefaria API

The Sefaria API allows live access to the Sefaria Library’s structured database of Jewish texts and their interconnections. It is designed to make it as simple as possible to get a new web or mobile app up and running.

Welcome to the Sefaria API Reference!

This is where you will find documentation and interactive playgrounds for many of our most important API endpoints. This reference is powered by our OpenAPI spec.

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Work-In-Progress

Please note: this reference is a work in progress. We are continually refining and improving both the API and its documentation, and we plan to document additional endpoints here in the future. Looking for something you can’t find? Contact us — we'd love to hear from you.

For additional documentation, check out our technical docs.

Getting Started

You don't need much in order to get started with our API; all of our currently documented endpoints can be accessed without API keys, tokens, or authorization.

Need a simple example? In this tutorial, we guide you step by step through a short script that uses a handful of endpoints.

Looking to dive deeper? You can jump right into our API Reference

Still puzzled? You can see what others have asked or contact us for help!

API Pathways

Below are several pathways through the Sefaria API for developers and researchers who want to become familiar with specific aspects of our data. Organized by use case, these entry points can help you navigate to the data you need as you learn the API.

Where are the books?

The Sefaria Library offers an open-source digital collection of Jewish books. To see all of the books available right now in the Sefaria Library, see the Table of Contents. To retrieve all of the metadata related to a specific book, try out the Index (v2) endpoint.

Ready to dive into some text data?

Start with Texts (v3) to retrieve text editions, along with all of the metadata for that given version. Dive into the Versions endpoint to see all available editions of a given book.

Links and relationships between texts

One of the most powerful features of Sefaria’s data is the network of links and other relationships between texts. To explore these connections, start with the Related API, which allows you to retrieve related commentaries on a verse, parallel passages, and more.

Building around a learning schedule?

Explore our CalendarsAPI to access data about the many study schedules tracked in the Sefaria Library.

Topics

Interested in Topics on Sefaria, our curated pages that organize sources by theme? Check out the Topic Graph endpoint to retrieve interrelated topics, and the Ref-Topic-Links endpoint to retrieve all of the Topics associated with a given text.

Images

Use our Social Media Image endpoint to generate shareable graphics based on a selected segment of text.

If you are looking for manuscript images, use the Manuscripts endpoint to retrieve corresponding manuscript pages for a given text.

Dictionaries and language tools

Check out the Lexicon endpoint and Word Completion endpoint to get started.

Building for non-English readers?

Use our Languages API to see all of the various languages on Sefaria, and query Translations to see all text editions available for that language. Then use the Texts (v3) to retrieve the text itself.

Randomized Content

Need a random text? See Random Text and Random By Topic endpoints.