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.
Ten Thousand Lovers
When an Israeli soldier dies in the line of duty, three officers come to your house and sit in your living room and tell you about it. Imagine how many times that scene has been played out in Israeli…
Circumcision in an Egyptian Relief
Circumcision in an Egyptian relief, Sakkara, Egypt, Sixth Dynasty (ca. 2350–2170 BCE). Priests perform circumcision on boys. The hieroglyphic legend reads “circumcision.” The hands of the boy on the…
Vise
Immediately I grabbed the man, gripped him, pressed him to me with all my stomach muscles, the way a carpenter, after applying the metal vise to the cupboard that suddenly collapsed, twists and…
Lot (puru), Assyria
Lot (puru), Assyria, 8th century BCE. The inscription identifies this as a lot (puru—the Akkadian form of Hebrew pur, the word used in Esther 3:7) that belonged to an Assyrian official named Yahalu…
Prisoners, Naked and Bound, in Embossed Relief
Prisoners, naked and bound, in embossed relief, Assyria, Iron Age II, 9th century BCE. These prisoners, from a city in Syria, were conquered by the army of Shalmaneser III, King of Assyria (reigned…
W, or The Memory of Childhood
I was born on Saturday, 7 March 1936, towards nine in the evening, in a maternity clinic located at 19 Rue de l’Atlas, in the xixth arrondissement of Paris. My father, I believe, was the one who…
Tomb of Pharaoh’s Daughter
The cemetery in the village of Silwan, on the hill east of the City of David, included some aboveground tombs, cut out from the cliffs on three or four sides so that they look like buildings. These…
Messages from My Father
I remember the moment when it dawned on me that my father did not impress the world at large as a powerful figure. We were at a camera store on the Plaza—a faux-Andalusian shopping district that…
Wedding Song: Memoirs of an Iranian Jewish Woman
If I had to pick one defining moment in my Iranian life, it would be 5:00 a.m. one Friday in the fall of 1968. I was fifteen. Normally I woke to the sounds of a peddler selling green almonds and fava…
Ivory-openwork Panel with a Sphinx Striding through Lotus Flowers
Sphinxes are among the most ubiquitous images on Iron Age Levantine ivories. The sphinx combines the features of several animals; it has the head of a human, the wings of an eagle, and the body of a…
Dress Parade
I have a great coat. I have round black eyes. I have a cap. I raise my hands. I am the boy whose hands are raised in the picture.