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.
Ancienne melodie de la synagogue
Charles-Valentin Alkan was the first composer to incorporate Jewish melodies in art music. His “Ancienne melodie de la synagogue,” a prelude for solo piano or organ, was published in 1847, along with…
Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table)
Joseph Karo’s Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table)—printed together with the additions of Moses Isserles’s Mapah (Tablecloth) and first published in 1565—was a codification of Jewish law that was easy to use as…
Ashkenazic Funeral: Carrying the Body to the Grave
Johann Christoph Georg Bodenschatz’s Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden, sonderlich derer in Deutschland (Religious Constitution of Today’s Jews, Especially Those in Germany), published in…
Kadavumbagam Synagogue (Cochin, India)
The Kadavumbagam Synagogue received its name (which means “by the side of the landing place”) from its peripheral location at the border of the Cochin Jewish neighborhood, where it served the Malabari…
Zabłudów Synagogue, Poland
There were once hundreds of wooden synagogues in Poland and Lithuania, but only a very few examples of this particularly Jewish form of architecture have survived. The Zabłudów synagogue, built around…
A Memento Mori
A Memento Mori is one of three vanitas pictures in a series commissioned by Isaac de Matatia Aboab, a wealthy East India merchant, emphasizing the impermanence of material pleasures and the transitory…
Beaker of the Polin Burial Society
This enameled glass beaker, belonging to the Polin Burial Society in Bohemia, is a fine example of the melding of Jewish and Bohemian art forms. It features painted figures carrying a body toward a…
Marven of the Great North Woods
Illustrations from Kathryn Lasky’s children’s book, Marven of the Great North Woods.
Tel Aviv Promenade, Tel Aviv-Jaffe, Israel
The main promenade of Tel Aviv, now known as the Lahat Promenade, is one of Tel Aviv’s most popular public spaces. Paved with pebbles in a pattern that evokes waves, it runs the entire length of the…
Trademark
Bulatov created many paintings that paired nature scenes with Soviet slogans, suggesting the pervasiveness of the Soviet regime, extending to every corner of its citizens’ lives. Here, in Trademark…
Kikar Levana (White Square)
Kikar Levana is an environmental sculpture in Tel Aviv, located on a hill in Edith Wolfson Park. Commissioned to commemorate the builders of the city, its simple geometrical shapes and white concrete…
Green on the Outside, Red on the Inside
Green on the Outside, Red on the Inside was rejected by the Venezuelan government as a contribution to the 1995 Venice Biennale. The installation consisted of a small building, resembling the majority…