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.
The Song at the Sea
Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. They said:
I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously;
Horse and driver He has hurled into the sea.
The Lord is my strength…
Song at the Sea (Exodus 15), Leningrad Codex
Song at the Sea (Exodus 15), Leningrad Codex, 1009 CE. The photo shows the first fourteen verses of the poem (Exodus 15:1–14) and a few prose verses from the end of the preceding chapter. The text of…
Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32), Aleppo Codex
Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32), Aleppo Codex, ca. 925 CE. The photo shows the beginning of the poem (Deuteronomy 32:1–14) and the prose verses from the end of the preceding chapter. The text of the…
A Secret Letter to London
The evening of 5 Heshvan, 5642 [October 28, 1881]
Tomorrow with the second post, a pamphlet will be sent to you with a responsum entitled Isaac’s Stream (Naḥal Yitsḥak), regarding a miserable agunah…
Responsum: On Women’s Rights to Divorce
Question: Some of the poor members of the nation in Egypt [do as follows]. When a man fights with his wife and their marriage is not working out, and the wife wants to divorce but the husband does not…
The Women Shopkeepers, or, Golde-Mine, the Abandoned Wife of Brod
In short, in addition to being affluent, our Reb Hoshea Heffler was also steeped in the holy books. He was a traditional Jew, who could not abide the maskilim, the enlightened ones. He always used to…
Head of a Young Jew (Self-Portrait)
Head of a Young Jew, Natan Altman’s most famous sculpture, is an expression of his desire to set a new, modern course for Jewish art. The asymmetrical sculpture, a combination of bronze, copper, and…
Tanakh Class in Jaffa
The Herzliya Gymnasium was the first modern Hebrew and Jewish national high school in Palestine. Founded by Zionist and Hebraist activists in 1905 in Jaffa and relocated to Tel Aviv soon after the new…
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…
My Own
My lovely lady is like flights of scent—
the other day she opened like a flower—
She is beautiful as angels in the spring—
the other night her sun warmed my heart—
My lady’s lips are the single…