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.
Head of a Woman
Between 1909 and 1915, Amedeo Modigliani created about twenty-five stone sculptures, using techniques he learned from the modernist sculptor Constantin Brancusi. The sculptures were inspired by…
The Lad Bialik
Ira Jan created this hagiographical depiction of her lover Chaim Nahman Bialik being anointed by angels as a child shortly before she was deported by Ottoman authorities to Egypt. Her romantic…
The Scholar, the Laborer, and the Toiler of the Soil
Maurice Ascalon, sometimes called the father of modern Israeli decorative arts, was commissioned to create this sculpture for the façade of the Palestine Pavilion of the 1939 New York World’s Fair…
From the series Jewish Soldiers
This series by Helmar Lerski pictured Jewish soldiers fighting with the British Army during World War II—all in all, about a hundred men and women. All the portraits are in Lerski’s distinctive…
The Prayer
Jacques Lipchitz created The Prayer in 1943 to express his horror over the mass murder of Jews, which was then underway in Europe, reportedly crying as he made the statue. The central figure in The…
The Banner of the Jew
Wake, Israel, wake! Recall to-day
The glorious Maccabean rage,
The sire heroic, hoary-gray,
His five-fold lion-lineage:
The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God,
The Burst-of-Spring, the…
Before the Statue of Apollo
To thee I come, O long-abandoned god
Of early moons and unremembered days,
To thee whose reign was in a greener world
Among a race of men divine with youth,
Strong generations of the sons of earth:
T…
The Young Lovers, Festival Garden, London, UK
The young couple depicted here are in the act of embracing one another, their cheeks touching. They are one of the best-known examples of Georg Ehrlich’s representational bronze sculptures, which…
The Holy Balshemtov
The holy Balshemtov walked in the field
In the cold dawn went walking in the field
As winds were blowing from the north.
Bitter cold from the north.
His limbs started to freeze.
Once his limbs were…
Still Life
Bread and cheese and honey on a simple table.
The tea beckons golden
In two thin glasses.
Green, cool and fresh,
The water jug, veiled in dew.
On the edge a woman’s handkerchief.
Next to it, a…
Miriam
[The play opens with a damp, moldy cellar room illuminated by windows splattered in mud from the passersby on the street and a smoky oven. The room is furnished with a bench, table, sofa, crib, broken…
Judaism and the Jews
The question I put before you, as well as before myself, is the question of the meaning of Judaism for the Jews.
Why do we call ourselves Jews? Because we are Jews? What does that mean: we are Jews? I…