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…
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…
Will the Old Sephardim Welcome the New?
Everyone who passes among those numbered from twenty years old and upward shall give his tribute to the Lord.
. . . As we number the congregation and lament that the young do not always take the…
The Pittsburgh Platform
In view of the wide divergence of opinion and of the conflicting ideas prevailing in Judaism today, we, as representatives of Reform Judaism in America, in continuation of the work begun at…
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…
Note of Royalty Who Visited the Sephardic Synagogue of Amsterdam between 1642 and 1781
the voice of prayer and the voice of song given inthe house of the lord elohei yisraelthe holy congregations of the sepharadimmay the lord comfort usin this great city of amsterdamfrom the day they…
Alberti: A Play in Five Acts
As Performed at the Charleston Theatre Alberti, Commander of the Florentine Army Lorenso D’Medici, surnamed the Magnificent Ippolito, betrothed to Antonia