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.
Sefarad Postponed: A Cuban-American Jew seeks Spanish citizenship
A Cuban-American Sephardic Jew recounts her efforts to obtain Spanish citizenship.
A Jewish Woman Challenges Marriage Law in Nineteenth-Century America
A 19th-century Jewish woman exposed how marriage laws denied women property and liberty—and called for full legal and political equality.
A Memoir of Hardship and Hope
A Jewish woman’s story of work, family, faith, and upheaval, revealing daily resilience amid crisis, childbirth, labor, and communal struggle.
The Coat of Arms of Lopez and Suaço
In the seventeenth century, members of the Suasso (Suaço, Suasco) family, bankers originally from Spain, lived in Holland and England. Antonio (Isaac) Lopez Suasso resided in The Hague during the…
Zionism, Assimilation, and Antisemitism in North Africa
Explore how French colonialism and the Alliance Israélite Universelle transformed Jewish life in North Africa, shaping identity and belonging.
Renew Ottoman Judaism through Zionism
Read how journalist David Isaac Florentin reconciled Zionism and Ottoman loyalty, shaping a vision of civic equality across Jewish communities.
Jewish National Autonomy in Europe
Read Simon Dubnow’s 1907 essay arguing that Jews were a native European nation entitled to cultural and political autonomy within modern states.
Autoemancipation: The Birth of Jewish Nationalism
Written in 1882 amid anti-Jewish violence, Leon Pinsker called for Jewish self-determination, inspiring modern Zionism.
Introduction to Glikl of Hameln's Memoir
It is not a grave that opens up to us in this book, but a human heart. The memoirs that are now seeing the light for the first time would have deserved to be published a long time…
Brother Daniel: Majority Ruling on Who Counts as a Jew
Explore Israel’s 1962 Brother Daniel case, where a Jewish-born Catholic monk was denied citizenship under the Law of Return.
Zionism, Power, and the Arab Question in Israel After 1948
Philosopher Simon Rawidowicz warned that Israel’s 1952 Nationality Law risked linking Jewish sovereignty to inequality, making the “Jewish” and “Arab” questions inseparable.
Brother Daniel: Dissenting View on Applying the Law of Return
In 1962, Justice Haim Cohn’s dissent in the Brother Daniel case redefined Jewish identity, separating nationality from religion under Israel’s Law of Return.