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.
Todah w’simrah (Music of Thanksgiving)
For decades, my efforts have been directed at purifying the old modes [die alten Weisen]. Through [general] use and arbitrary treatment they have suffered tactless changes and distortions. I…
The Legends of the Tannaim
Dedicated to Dr. Zunz, the grandmaster of Jewish scholarship, on his 90th birthday.
Medal of Appreciation
In 1860, the Austrian Jewish community commissioned a medal of appreciation for Franz Joseph to commemorate the emperor’s granting to Jews the right to own property within the Austrian Empire. On the…
Jews in China
We shall now sum up the different opinions as regards the arrival of the Jews on Chinese soil.The missionaries reported that the Jews believe, according to a tradition, that their ancestors came to…
Ketubah
The ketubah is a religious and legal contract of marriage. Traditionally, it outlines the conjugal and economic conditions of a marriage and is written in Aramaic. This ornate one from Isfahan, Iran…
Jewish Statistics
Jewish statistics began 3,000 years ago. But for the first time since the dispersion of the Jewish people an organization has been formed in their midst that has set itself the goal to produce a…
Letter: On Conversion Problems in Hamadan
Community. From the point of view of religious practices, the Jewish community of Hamadan is one of the least homogeneous of Persia. It is not unusual to find in the same family a mother who is a…
Sermon of the Fast of Av (Synagogue of Amsterdam)
Edouard Brandon’s painting of Amsterdam’s famous Portuguese Synagogue (1675) is set on the Ninth of Av, a fast day commemorating and mourning the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Members of the…
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious
The occurrence of self-criticism as a determinant may explain how it is that a number of the most apt jokes . . . have grown up on the soil of Jewish popular life. They are stories created by Jews and…
Announcement Establishing the Zentralverein Organization
We received the following appeal addressed to the German citizens of Jewish faith with the request to publish it:
For the past two decades, a movement has disquieted our fatherland whose ultimate…
From Volozhin to Jerusalem
Even in the past, some thirty to forty years ago, when Jewish life in Russia was still very conservative, there was a difference between those cities and towns located…
The Eighth Party Convention
Whereas the legislation regarding linguistic rights currently being considered by the Duma directly opposes the interests of the proletariat and the masses of the Jewish nation; and whereas this…