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.
Arriving Family, King George Street, Johannesburg
In this photograph, David Goldblatt captured a Black family newly arrived in Johannesburg, looking small and vulnerable as they pass the tall pole of a streetlamp, with massive buildings looming…
My Tiny, Ugly World
Never have I been content with my narrow, dark, gloomy world, and always am I aware of the contrast between the great, beautiful world and my tiny, ugly world. And always I say, “The place is too…
Memoirs of a Grandmother
In these years of the 1880s, as anti-Semitism raged all over Russia, there were only two ways for the Jews. Either give up all that had become essential to them, in the name of Judaism; or take the…
Medal from Dedication of the Munich Synagogue in 1826
I. W. Loewenbach’s medal commemorating the dedication of the new synagogue in Munich (1826) is among the earliest German synagogue medals. On one side of the medal, one sees the façade of the…
Thesaurus of Hebrew-Oriental Melodies: Songs of the Yemenite Jews
A systematic collection of the traditional songs of Oriental Jews is of great importance, both for the elucidation of the vocal music used in synagogues and for the study of the origins of…
Annunciation
In this baroque Christian altarpiece that Anton Raphael Mengs painted for the Catholic church, the Colegiata of Castrojeriz, which is near Burgos, Spain, the Madonna is holding an open book. The angel…
Letter to the Alliance Israélite Universelle
I am in the process of preparing a rather copious work on Salonica, its past, and its present. The history of the [Jewish] community has given me quite a headache. I have gone through a pile of…
The Hunt in Bohemia
The great controversy in Bohemia surrounding the language legislation shows Austrian Jews in a strange position. They go along loyally with those who only yesterday had been their fiercest enemies—and…
On the Tasks of the Folkspartay
We must not repeat the mistake made by western Jews . . . in denying their nationality and in assimilating completely in all areas of life except religion. . . . We eastern Jews have seen all the…
Witches’ Sabbath
Thus there began to form, or to show itself within me that heart so proud and yet so tender, that effeminate and yet indomitable character which, constantly vacillating between weakness and courage,…
Letters to Sholem Aleichem
June 17, 1888 [June 29 in the Gregorian calendar]Dear Sir:Several days ago, I received an undated and terse postcard from one of my friends, a person close to me, H. Epstein, in which the following…
To the Modern Girl
It is you, modern girls, whom I address. The modern spirit has completely changed your natures. If the sages of old, who spoke so much about the wonderful strength of woman as opposed to man, found…