Posen Library

The Posen Library

THE POSEN LIBRARY is a dynamic, growing collection of images and excerpts from primary sources by or about Jews available on this interactive database and in a landmark print series.

Read Deborah Dash Moore’s introduction to The Posen Library

Volume 1: Ancient Israel, from Its Beginnings through 332 BCE

The volume covers a period when many phenomena developed that would come to define Jewish culture and civilization: the Hebrew language and alphabet, Israelite/Jewish law and religion, and the books of the Hebrew Bible, that editors Jeffrey H. Tigay and Adele Berlin describe as “Israel’s greatest and most distinctive cultural achievement.”

Seven-Spouted Ceramic Oil Lamp

(Iron Age II, ninth–eighth century BCE)
Its multiple (seven) spouts and pedestal made this lamp from the sanctuary area of Tel Dan unusual. With its extra height (as tall as 9 inches) and multiple flames, it produced much more light than the standard one-spout lamp.
Collection of the Israel Antiquities Authority. © Z. Radovan / BibleLandPictures.com
From Volume 1: Ancient Israel, from Its Beginnings through 332 BCE

Read more about the Seven-Spouted Ceramic Oil Lamp …

Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750–1880

This volume covers a momentous period, described by editor Elisheva Carlebach as a time “in which every aspect of Jewish life underwent the most profound changes to have occurred since antiquity.”

Paper Cut—Mizrah

Paper Cut—Mizrah (1848) by the artisan Moshe Michael Rosenboim, located in Schönlanke (Trzcianka, Poland), a masterful example of a Judaic paper cut.
Property of Sidie Weiskopf. Image courtesy of University Press of New England, photo by Robert E. Mates, Englewood, NJ.

From Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750–1880

Volume 8: Crisis and Creativity between World Wars, 1918–1939

“Rapid, dramatic change characterized the short twenty-year interval between the two world wars,” write editors Todd M. Endelman and Zvi Gitelman. “This volume is intended to introduce readers to a world that they did not know existed. We stress the richness of the writing and reflection throughout the Jewish world.”

Hester Street

Hester Street (1938) by Sol Libsohn (1914–2001), one of the co-founders, in 1936, of the New York Photo League, a group of left-wing photographers committed to documenting ordinary American lives.
Copyright the Estate of Sol Libsohn, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY.

From Volume 8: Crisis and Creativity between World Wars, 1918–1939

Volume 9: Catastrophe and Rebirth, 1939–1973

From the Holocaust and the eve of World War II through the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, this volume explores how Jews redefined themselves throughout an era rife with displacement and dispersion. “This 1,000-page volume,” say editors Samuel D. Kassow and David G. Roskies, “will stand Jewish history on its head.”

The Autumn of Central Paris by R. B. Kitaj

The Autumn of Central Paris (After Walter Benjamin) (1972–1973) by R. B. Kitaj (1932–2007), an American-born artist who spent the most influential years of his painting career in England, where he settled in 1958.
Collection Mrs. Susan Lloyd, New York © R. B. Kitaj Estate.

From Volume 9: Catastrophe and Rebirth, 1939–1973

Volume 10: Late Twentieth Century, 1973–2005

“Readers will find more than 800 examples of the many expressive forms of Jewish culture that flourished during the last decades of the twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first century.”—Booklist, Top Ten Religion Reference Sources (starred review)

The Only Corner by Moico Yaker

The Only Corner (2002) by Moico Yaker (b. 1949), Peruvian artist who grew up in the highlands of Arequipa and lives now in Lima and New York.
Courtesy of the artist. Image courtesy of Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX.

From Volume 10: Late Twentieth Century, 1973–2005

THE POSEN DIGITAL LIBRARY (PDL)

THIS CONTENT IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FREE UPON REGISTRATION TO THE PDL:
Online now: images and text from
ca. 2000–332 BCE (Vol 1),
1750–1880 (Vol 6),
1918–1939 (Vol 8),
1939–1973 (Vol 9), and
1973–2005 (Vol 10).

Coming in 2022: 1500–1750 (Vol 5).

Explore the Posen Digital Library

Deborah Dash Moore

Professor Dash Moore is the Editor-in-Chief of The Posen Library. She is a pioneering scholar of American Jewish history and the co-editor of Volume 10 of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization.

Read more about Deborah Dash Moore

Welcome to the Website of The Posen Library

To Read the Selections and Enjoy the Art in the Posen Digital Library, Register Now for FREE or Log In, then Search or Browse! Learn More about How to Use the PDL Here.

Visual and Material Culture
Painting, photography, prints, drawings, posters, mixed media, sculpture, installations, and architecture. Religious & Spiritual Culture
Prayer book passages, personal prayer, and liturgical poetry.

Literature
Fiction, poetry, memoir, children's and young adults' literature, and drama. Intellectual Culture
First-person accounts, personal reflections, critical evaluations, and ideological statements.

Popular Culture
Cartoons, comics, travel, and food.