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.
Temple Emanuel Sanctuary Wall (Grand Rapids, Michigan)
Lucienne Bloch’s thousand-square-foot mural covers the entire rear wall of Temple Emanuel, the building of which was designed by Erich Mendelssohn. Painted on lightweight wood panels in a palette…
In the Days of the Storm
Now the days of the pogroms came, and the hands of the masses were raised against the Jews to strike and destroy them. Socialism disgusted me. Not from the idea, which I still hold even more strongly…
Topographic Map of the city of Caracas
Ángel Jacob Jesurún’s topographical map of Caracas, with its geometric grid, is the first map after Venezuela’s independence to be drawn and printed by a native of the city. After decades of war and…
Torah Curtain
This Torah curtain was made in Ankara, Turkey. The motifs of a central menorah and hands making the priestly blessing were common in other Ottoman Jewish ritual folk art. Embroidered verses from the…
Popular Poetry of the Russian Jews
[ . . . ] Similarly, the Russian Jews use the traditional rhyming couplet in those verses that chronicle a historical event or inculcate an ethical truth. The real folksongs, however, are set to music…
Sermon on the Melting Pot
There is no denying that under the influence of this enthusiasm for America, the disintegrating process of the Melting Pot is taking place in large measure. That it is not, fortunately, taking place…
An Exchange on the Jewish Question
Is there a Jewish people? Thousands of Jews, whose language at school and in daily discourse is Hebrew, are again living in Palestine. Neo-Hebrew literature has essayists like Ahad Ha-Am, poets like B…
I Am . . .
I am Mani Leyb, whose name is sung—
In Brownsville, Yehupets, and farther, they know it:
Among cobblers, a splendid cobbler; among
Poetical circles, a splendid poet.
A boy straining over the…
Chapters of My Autobiography
The story of my life is only exceptional in that it represents a great change of identity in the heart of the Jewish people. [ . . . ]
I was born a Jewish Algerian—a French citizen to boot—and during…
The Lonely Man of Faith
It is not the plan of this essay to discuss the millennium-old problem of faith and reason. I want instead to focus attention on a human-life situation in which the man of faith as an individual…
Correspondence with Moses Montefiore
To Sir Moses Montefiore, from Oro, the widow of Hayim Arieh, 1866
[Oh] one who gives light to the earth and to them that dwell thereon, who is…