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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.
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Menorat zahav (Golden Menorah)

When Rabbi Zusya went to suffer the exile in Germany, he came to a city of Reform Jews. When they saw his ways, they mocked him and thought he was crazy. When he came into the synagogue, some of them…

From the Editor, El Jurnal israelit

From the Editor: With God’s help, the time has come for our newspaper to appear before the community, and I am sure that at first our esteemed subscribers will not judge us for its errors, because all…

Letters of a Young Ex- Hasid

We live in a time of a universal striving for science and civilization, and the spirit of the time warms the hearts of everyone alike with its breath. It permeates the depths of the soul and reason…
Tombstone with Hebrew inscription engraved with columns, flowers in curved shape above text, and wings at the top of the stone.
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Tombstone of Joel ben Ze’ev

This tombstone of Joel ben Ze’ev, who died in 1744, is topped with a carving of an eagle. Winged griffins and eagles symbolize God’s power. Only the wealthy could afford stone markers before the…
Print of two scenes, both with French text below: the top showing men in large room walking in circle with books, the bottom showing men shoveling dirt onto grave.
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Funeral Activities

Between 1723 and 1737, illustrator Bernard Picart partnered with the Dutch bookseller, editor, and publisher Jean-Frédéric Bernard on Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (R…
Manuscript page with Hebrew text in circular frames arranged as a diagram in the shape of a human head with crown.
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Sefirotic Diagram of the First Man

According to the colophon, Natan Hammerschlag’s Ilan de-adam kadmon (Sefirotic Diagram of the First Man) was copied from the writings of Ḥayim Vital, the most prominent disciple of Isaac Luria…
Photograph of ornamental Torah ark chamber with gilded columns and doors with filigree and Hebrew writing.
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Urbino Synagogue, Italy

This Torah ark, installed in a synagogue in the Italian town of Urbino, is a fine example of Renaissance Judaica. Carved from walnut in the early sixteenth century, the ark belonged to the Sephardic…
Photograph of room with high ceiling, tall podium up short staircase with golden canopy, and rows of wooden benches.
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Scuola Greca (Corfu)

Built in the seventeenth century, the Scuola Greca is a synagogue located in the area of the ghetto in which Jews were confined in 1622, in a neighborhood still known as “Evraiki” (Jews). It is the…