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.
Remarks at Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Swearing-In Ceremony
Thank you, Chief Justice. Mr. President, distinguished guests, colleagues, and friends. Not yet two months ago, President Clinton announced his intention to nominate me as Associate Justice of the…
Jerusalem and Athens: The Congruity of Talmudic and Classical Philosophy
The Talmud is one of the great, classical writings of human civilization—enduring, influential, nourishing. It claims its place among the most successful pieces of writing in the history of humanity…
Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew
Why does a book on Jewish philosophy begin with a discussion of revelation? First, because it is revelation that creates Judaism as a religion. […] Without God’s…
Avinu Malkeynu
We have strayed off the path, missed the mark.
We address the Parent of the Universe,
the Majesty of Life.
There is no other.
We pray for renewal this year,
that harsh decrees be annulled,
that…
Service in the Great Synagogue to Mark the Tercentenary of the Ashkenazi Community on 14 November 1935
The first Ashkenazi Jews to settle in Amsterdam, refugees from the Chmielnicki uprising in Poland and the Thirty Years War, initially joined the Sephardi congregation there. In 1671, they established…
Refugees, Warsaw Ghetto
This watercolor sketch of uprooted Jews arriving in the Warsaw Ghetto was one of many artworks Rynecki made while incarcerated there. Before the war, many of his paintings documented the vibrancy of…
The Mutilated
Yankl Adler painted The Mutilated in London during a period of heavy bombing in homage to “the behavior of Londoners under great stress and suffering.” He made two other paintings the same style and…
La Ghriba Djerba, Tunisia
Jules Lellouche painted the interior of this synagogue in Djerba during World War II, when Tunisia was ruled by Vichy France. Though Tunisia’s Jewish community escaped mass deportations and murder in…
Imaginary Wall in My Studio
This “imaginary wall” in Raphael Soyer’s studio features (clockwise, from top left) a self-portrait; portraits of the artists Nicolai Cikovsky, Moses Soyer, and Chaim Gross. In the center is the…
Arnold Krupp
When Arnold Newman was asked by Newsweek magazine to photograph industrialist Alfred Krupp, he initially refused. He was repelled by the idea of photographing a man who had been prosecuted as a war…
New York City, Three Women
The street photographer Garry Winogrand said he was motivated by wanting “to see what the world looks like in photographs.” He didn’t regard his photos as identical with the reality of the scenes he…
Christ Preaching at Capernaum
Maurycy Gottlieb saw his art as essential to his universalist vision, namely, as a way to improve Polish-Jewish relations. As he said, “I am a Jew and a Pole and, God willing, I want to serve both.”…