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.
Latina, Southern Italy
Dorothy Bohm was known for her photographic still lifes, portraits, reportage, social documentary, and landscapes, such as this one, expressing her interest in capturing “poetic, mysterious…
Pages from My Life
[ . . . ] In time, I lost my shyness. I became a “big shot” in one of the Am Olam groups. In our debates it became clear to me that it was still a beautiful idea to start colonies in which we…
A History of the Jewish Labor Movement in Russia
During the nineteenth century the lives of Jews in Russia underwent enormous changes. In pre-reform times most Jews lived in villages and small towns. Most were engaged in trade and…
A Letter to Feffer
From other friends—poets, creators,
who are dear to me always,
I step away today,
Feffer,
and turn to you!
The battles still rage
on our literary planet
but it’s time to consider
the creative…
East End My Cradle
Anti-Semitism in my infancy, had its compensations, for being confined practically to children (I speak of anti-Semitism not as a subjective attitude but in its…
To My Friends
God’s grace has surely been overabundant.
Riches were mine. Hardly a day would pass
When human sympathy did not alight on me
Like manna from the sky.
I cupped my slender fingers to receive it
Ironic…
The Jewish Object: A Shopper’s Report
In the new religious revival, the theologians and philosophers have it easy; they can battle about the nature of revelation endlessly in the pages of Commentary. Parents and householders, on the other…
Ancestral Tales and Legends
Under the roof of the oldest synagogue in Prague (the Altneuschul), because of the belief that misfortune would meet the workers, there is preserved, in its primeval form and color, a piece of trunk…
Shem ha-gedolim ha-shalem (Names of the Great Ones, Complete)
Although he himself would not recite “for the sake of the unification,” in keeping with the ruling of the Gaon—the Noda bi-Yehudah [R. Ezekiel Landau]—he was occasionally jealous of those who say it.…
Flörsheim Haggadah
This Haggadah, decorated in the Ashkenazic tradition, was copied in northern Italy. As is traditional for Ashkenazic Haggadahs, illustrations appear in the margins and frame the text. At the top left…
Jewish Doctor (Medico Giudeo)
This depiction of a Jewish doctor is from a travelogue by French geographer Nicolas Nicolay, who is believed to have also created the illustrations in the book. Considered at the time a key source of…
Nature Abhors a Vacuum
Nature Abhors a Vacuum is a monumental painting, over nine feet square. Though the artist, Frankenthaler, eschewed representational painting, she often cited landscapes as an inspiration for her work…