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.
Rabbinic Reports on Circumcision
Altona, 24 Ab 5603
Chief Rabbi!
Messrs. Adler and Fuld, members of your congregation, asked for my opinion, from the Jewish-religious perspective…
Leviathan
Having laid out for the reader my thoughts about religion, revelation, and faith/belief, their manifold aim and their various components, I now consider…
A Summary of Modern Jewish History
The Jews are everywhere, in the old world and in the new. They can be found in Jamaica, in New England, in Washington’s America as well as in Bolívar’s, and even in Austral lands. If this people were…
Manifesto of the Communist Party
A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals…
Psalm 92, Od yenuvun (They Shall Still Bring Forth)
This setting for Psalm 92 is one example of the innovative music composed by Louis Lewandowski, Samuel Naumbourg, and Salomon Sulzer (1804–1890) for the synagogues of the new Reform movement. Their…
Tombstone of Joel ben Ze’ev
This tombstone of Joel ben Ze’ev, who died in 1744, is topped with a carving of an eagle. Winged griffins and eagles symbolize God’s power. Only the wealthy could afford stone markers before the…
Silk Bag for Eruv Bread
An eruv (or eruv ḥatserot, merger of domains) is a symbolic expansion of an area outside a single home into a larger private domain. Within that eruv, certain activities prohibited in the public…
Funeral Activities
Between 1723 and 1737, illustrator Bernard Picart partnered with the Dutch bookseller, editor, and publisher Jean-Frédéric Bernard on Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (R…
Moses and Aaron with the Ten Commandments
Moses and Aaron with the Ten Commandments was painted by Aron de Chavez, a painter and engraver of Dutch origin, for the synagogue in Creechurch Lane (the first post-medieval synagogue in London) used…
Torah Finials
These richly decorated Torah finials (rimonim), cast in silver and partly gilt, and adorned with many bells and topped with crowns, were created in London. The non-Jewish silversmith William Spackman…
Kiddushin and Wedding Ceremony
Between 1723 and 1737, illustrator Bernard Picart partnered with the Dutch bookseller, editor, and publisher Jean-Frédéric Bernard on Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (R…
Tikun keriyah le-kol laylah ve-yom (Supplications for Every Day and Night)
The frontispiece of this book of penitential prayers, printed in Amsterdam by David de Castro Tartas, proclaims the pro-Sabbatean beliefs that were then widespread in the Amsterdam Jewish community…