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.
Hezekiah’s Prayer upon Recovery from Illness
A poem by King Hezekiah of Judah when he recovered from the illness he had suffered:
I had thought:
I must depart in the middle of my days;
I have been consigned to the gates of Sheol
For the rest…
The Dialogues between Job and his Friends. The First Cycle
Then Eliphaz the Temanite said in reply:
If one ventures a word with you, will it be too much?
But who can hold back his words?
See, you have encouraged many;
You have strengthened…
The Family
The Family is believed to be a portrait of Bertalan Pór’s own family. His father and three youngest brothers worked in the timber trade, another brother became a doctor, and one of his sisters was a…
Letter of the Persian Governor to King Darius and the King’s Reply
This is the text of the letter that Tattenai, governor of the province of Beyond the River, and Shethar-boze-nai and his colleagues, the officials of Beyond the River, sent to King Darius…
Dispatch of Food
[Greetings, PN,] from [PN].
[No]w, I [sen]t to you, saying: “Do not dispatch to me bread without it being sealed.”
Lo, all the jars are impure. Behold, the bread which [you]
dispatch[ed] to me…
Grand Choral Synagogue
Though construction ended in 1888 after eight years, the neo-Byzantine and Moorish revival Grand Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg was not consecrated until 1893. The grand, imposing building, which…
Jabłonów Wooden Synagogue
The wooden synagogue in Jabłonów was built in the second half of the seventeenth century. Its walls were covered in colorful paintings. This photograph by Alois Breier was taken in 1910, shortly…
Set Design for Sholem Aleichem’s Get (Divorce)
The Russian Revolution initially encouraged a flowering of Jewish cultural activity, lifting restrictions on Jewish publishing. Jewish theater companies experimented with modernist approaches to stage…
The Melting Pot
The plot of Israel Zangwill’s 1908 play The Melting Pot described the love of a Jewish musician and composer for the Christian daughter of a Russian antisemite as epitomizing the promise of America…
The Founding of the Honorable Spanish Community in Vienna
This happened in the city of Madrid late at night, at the hour when nobody was in the streets, when all people were in bed resting from the exhaustion of the previous day. Suddenly, there was a knock…
The Red Heifer
It happened on a Saturday night at the end of summer. Reuven and his household were sitting at twilight and enjoying their heifer. His youngest were patting her, the older were praising her. The…
The Man from Buenos Aires
Riding a train doesn’t have to be dull if you manage to fall in with good company. You can meet up with merchants, men who know business, and then the time flies, or with people who have been around…