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.
We Speak and Write This Language against Our Will
Dear Vara of my soul,
Wherever it may be, I am always hit in the face by a pet peeve, some vexation and angst, due to the misbehavior of certain of our women who still do not know whether they are in…
Speech: On American Judaism
There is no room for Ghetto Judaism in America. Look at any of the creeds and churches in our free land! They are all more tolerant, more liberal, more humane and sympathetic in their mutual relations…
Modern Judaism in Orient and Occident (East and West)
The author is no novice in this area of research; however, thirty years have passed since he was last engaged deeply in the history of religion. During the ten years of his stay on the banks of the…
The Ninth of Ab
August is flat and still, with ever-thickening green
Leaves, clipped in their richness; hoarse sighs in
the grass,
Moments of mowing, mark out the
lengthening summer. The ground
We children…
Travail in an Arab Land
Free of any preoccupations, I allowed myself to seek out and investigate the Jews, their manners and customs. They are good-hearted folk, charitable and hospitable to strangers. They honor the Torah…
The Symptoms of the Time
By emphasizing religious activity, Judaism is completely tied to life and becomes the property of every individual Jew. A religion of pure ideas belongs primarily to the theologians; the masses who…
The Fake Doctor
A Play by Molière in One Act of Sixteen Scenes[Carlo, Esterina]Carlo:Is there any news, Esterina? Do you have any advice for me?Esterina:Why do you want advice? I have a lot of news for you…
Portuguese and Ashkenazic Synagogues in Amsterdam
In 1670, Amsterdam’s Portuguese Jewish community commissioned a new synagogue, which, when finished, was the largest in the world. The master mason Elias Bouman, a non-Jew who had helped design the…
Ketubah (Hamburg)
On June 7, 1690, Samuel de Isaac Senior Teixeira married Rachel Teixeira de Mattos Senior in Hamburg. Their beautiful ketubah (marriage contract) depicts the couple under the wedding canopy…
Persian Carpet
This Persian carpet, manufactured between 1600 and 1630, was later used for a reader’s desk and desk cover in the Portuguese Synagogue in The Hague, Netherlands.
Portrait of Shabbetai Tzvi
Shabbetai Tzvi was the central figure of a messianic movement that swept the Jewish world in the mid-seventeenth century. Born in Izmir (Smyrna), as an adolescent Shabbetai Tzvi embarked on the study…
