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.
Curse in Burial Cave at Khirbet el-Kom (Makkedah) #6
Cursed be Hagab! Son of Hagab
To YHWH of the Hosts
Translated by Anson F. Rainey from Shmuel Aḥituv’s Hebrew edition.
Portrait of Marc Chagall
Yehudah Pen painted this portrait of Marc Chagall soon after Chagall returned to Vitebsk from Paris in order to marry his sweetheart, Bella. While he was there, World War I broke out, and Chagall was…
Complaint about Demoralizing the Troops
To my lord, Yaush, may YHWH cause my lord to see peace at this time! Who is your servant, a dog, that my lord sent him the king’s [lette]r [and] the letters of the officers, saying, “Please read!” And…
Self-Portrait
Chaim Soutine’s self-portrait is both an homage to art history and a critique of it. There was a long tradition of artists painting themselves facing an easel, holding a palette and paint brushes. But…
Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild
The neoclassical Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, designed for the Baroness Charlotte Béatrice de Rothschild, remains Aaron Messiah’s most famous work. Located in Cap Ferrat in southern France, the…
An Ottoman Torah Ark Curtain Made from a Woman's Dress
This sumptuous velvet and gilt-metal-thread embroidered Torah ark curtain most likely began its life as the wedding gown of a well-to-do Jewish woman of the Ottoman Empire. It was unstitched and…
Esarhaddon’s Prism Nineveh A
I mobilized the kings of Hatti and “Beyond-the-River”: Baal, king of Tyre; Manasseh, king of Judah; Kaus-gabri, king of Edom; Mutsuri, king of Moab; Tsilli-Bel, king of Gaza; Mitinti, king of Ashkelon…
KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation, Chicago, Detail of Decoration at the Balcony Level
In designing this synagogue, Alschuler drew on photographs of the remains of a second-century Byzantine synagogue in Tiberias. He wrote that he designed the synagogue “not in sense of slavish…
Dancing Lesson
Soyer’s informal family portrait, Dancing Lesson, has become an iconic image of the American Jewish experience, appearing on many book covers and exhibition catalogs. It was painted about thirteen…
The Dark Pilgrimage
In the year 1885, a few days after the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, it began to rain in the plains surrounding the rivers Rednitz and Pegnitz and continued to do so almost…
In the Mountains
And around us loomed the mountains, various heights, various shapes, squeezed together or clambering atop one another. Some were terrifying with their rugged lines, some were soft and delicate like a…
The Making of Americans
It’s a great question this question of washing. One never can find anyone who can be satisfied with anybody else’s washing. I knew a man once who never as far as anyone could see ever did any washing…