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.
Jacob’s Ladder
One Who Is Rebellious:To obey commandments of which merely the ear is aware,Yet remain deaf to urges that shake the whole being;To regard as good the former,Which reveal the soul so as to abandon it…
Statistical Report of One Shtetl
Statisticians customarily provide detailed counts for a typical small town, from which deductions can be made regarding other small towns of the same type. Thus the statistics of a small town acquire…
Medal Commemorating the Enfranchisement of the Jews of Westphalia by Jerome Bonaparte
Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, was appointed to rule the short-lived Kingdom of Westphalia, which Napoleon established in Northern Germany. This medal celebrates his grant of emancipation to…
Portrait of Benjamin S. Judah
Benjamin S. Judah (1761–1831) was an influential businessman in New York City and Philadelphia who built his wealth on shipping contracts to and from the West Indies. Judah was bankrupted when Great…
Advertisement for Shtilim, a Hebrew Children’s Journal
We have come together these days, during the awakening of our Hebrew literary sphere, to establish a special newspaper for Jewish youngsters and children.Do we really need to talk at length about how…
Portrait of Cecilie Freiin von Eskeles
Cecilie Freiin von Eskeles (1760–1836) was noted for her salon, which attracted leading musical, literary, and intellectual figures. Daughter of the court Jew Daniel Itzig, she brought the Berlin…
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature
[ . . . ] A few remarks on foreign words in the literature which for the sake of brevity is here called Talmudic, may not be out of place in this preface.The intercourse between the Jews of the…
Triumph des Jahres 1813 (Triumph of the Year 1813)
This caricature by the Henschel brothers celebrates the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in December 1813. This battle, the final in Napoleon’s “German Campaign,” is also known as the…
Introspectivism
With this collection, we intend to launch a particular trend in Yiddish poetry which has recently emerged in the works of a group of Yiddish poets. We have chosen to call it the Introspective…
Letter from Crémieux Agricultural Colony to Peretz Smolenskin
23 Tevet 5643, to the Publisher [Peretz Smolenskin]!The trials and tribulations that afflicted us in the land of our…
Judaism and Yiddish
“If God grant that the earth will be full of understanding, and everyone will speak the same language, Ashkenazic, then only (the form) Brisk will be written.” That is how Meir ben Moses Hacohen, the…
Protest against Zionism
We recently received from Vienna the new newspaper of the “Zionists,” Die Welt. It appeared on the eve of the holiday of the Feast of Weeks, which reminds us more than any other holiday that it was…