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.
An Early Reading of Shakespeare
Responding to a growing interest in Shakespeare among the English, Hart’s painting imagines what it might have been like to hear Shakespeare’s works read out loud, shortly after they became available…
Circumcision Bench
In Ashkenazic communities, circumcision benches with two seats were sometimes used from the nineteenth century on, one for the sandek, the godfather on whose lap the baby boy is circumcised, and one…
Portrait of Amalie Beer
The daughter of the wealthiest Jew (Liepmann Meyer Wulff) in Berlin at the turn of the century and married to a wealthy sugar refiner (Jacob Herz Beer), Amalie (Malka) Beer (1767–1854) was a…
Sikhes-khulin (Small Talk, or, The Legend of Prague)
Cover of Sikhes-khulin: Eyne fun di geshikhtn (Small Talk, or, The Legend of Prague) by Moyshe Broderzon, with illustrations by El Lissitzky. The book is an example of a new modernist style that…
Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue
Kneseth Eliyahoo was endowed in honor of Baghdad-born Eliyahoo (Elias) David Sassoon (1820–1880), son of textile magnate David Sassoon (1792–1864), by Elias’s sons. The synagogue was constructed in…
Wertheim Department Store
The Warenhaus Wertheim was owned by the Jewish Wertheim family, whose chain of department stores enjoyed significant financial success until the Nazis cut off their revenue. The façade of the massive…
Painting of the Żólkiew Synagogue
This painting exemplifies the decorative plaques that sometimes adorned the eastern walls of synagogues to commemorate the glory of the Temple in Jerusalem and indicate the direction of prayer. In…
Hashlamat sefer ha-kabbalah (Additions to the Book of Tradition)
I will describe only a little of the suffering undergone by the exiles, some of whom entered the kingdom of Fez by the grace of the great king, one of the righteous men of the nations of the world…
Seder ha-dorot (Order of the Generations)
Behold I request of all standing at the gate to knock,And he who wishes to enter deep within this composition of mine,Let him understand and be wise and contemplate the introduction I have composed.Fo…
Kore’ ha-dorot (Reader for the Generations)
And after the rabbi [Joseph Karo] went to Safed he studied in the study house of the rabbi, our master, Jacob Berab, and became a disciple of our master R. Berab, as is written in several places. The…
Tsemaḥ David (The Sprout of David): Introduction to the Second Part
Nevertheless, I saw from the first that many people would open their mouths wide against me [see Psalms 22:14] and speak arrogantly against me and think it a sin on my part for my having written based…