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.
Synagogue Hanukkah Lamp
This Hanukkah lamp from Poland is made from brass and would likely have been placed near the Torah ark in a synagogue. An engraved and cast eagle sits above a domed cupola, representing gratitude and…
Torah Mantles
These Torah mantles, thought to be created in the Netherlands, are embroidered and have fringed borders. The mantle on the right is sumptuously adorned with brightly colored flowers, along with panels…
Multilingual Exemplar Leaf
This sheet by the calligrapher and scribe Iehudah Machabeu presents samples of different “lettering,” including Hebrew (at the top), Arabic, Greek, Castilian, English, French, Italian, and Latin. It…
Tikun li-kro’ laylah va-yom (A Tikkun to Read Day and Night)
The frontispiece of this book of penitential prayers published in Amsterdam, Tikun li-kro’ laylah va-yom (A Tikkun to Read Day and Night) has a three-tiered illustration. The top level depicts Moses…
Disputatio medica inauguralis, de pleuritide (Inaugural Medical Discourse: On Pleuritide)
This is the title page of Disputatio medica inauguralis, de pleuritide (Inaugural Medical Discourse: On Pleuritide), David Pina’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Leiden. Pina was a…
Untitled
Bar-El uses found materials as base materials, painting and writing directly onto street signs, discarded furniture, posters, and other objects that he scavenges from the streets of Tel Aviv…
David’s Room
Among the inspirations for Bar Lev’s paintings were American patchwork quilts, Mexican and Native American art, stained-glass windows, Russian constructivism, and pop art. She combined patterns and…
Allenby, Rothschild
Frydlender uses digital technology to create panoramic photographs, taking as many as a hundred individual photographs and assembling them into one image. While his photographs accurately reproduce…
Pinkas Lita (Register of Lithuania): On Excommunication
If one who has been excommunicated does not act to have his excommunication removed within thirty days, and the local rabbinic court sees and observes that he remains in his state of rebellion when he…
El libro des los acuerdos (The Book of Accounts)
43. To avoid the scandal and hindrance that it causes in this Kahal Kados on the occasions when English ladies come to see the ceremonies of our religion…
O my creator!: On Entering the Synagogue
O my creator! Pay heed to the servant that knocks at your doors; open up for him the entrance to the lintel of your dwelling place.
As he lifts up his eyes to you, may his supplication, his cries…