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.
Or la-yesharim (Light for the Righteous)
To explain the verse with which we started, we will set forth another thesis. It is a custom in Israel—and custom has the status of Torah—for preachers to travel from city to city to rebuke the people…
The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon: Maskilic View of Heder
I must now say something of the condition of the Jewish schools in general. The school is commonly a small smoky hut, and the children are scattered, some on benches, some on the bare earth. The…
The Hebrew Crusading Newspaper
We [of the Polish weekly journal Jutrzenka (Dawn), October 25, 1861] have already had the opportunity to mention a number of periodicals devoted entirely to Jewish affairs. We have also named three…
Recruits
Aaron:It’s all a plain lie. It’s because our Jews throughout the land in the little villages are so primitive, so stupid, they can’t even read. Anyone will tell them the most absurd things and they…
Shir hama‘alot (Song of Ascents)
“Shir ha-ma‘alot (Song of Ascents),” Psalm 126, is customarily recited or sung before the Grace After Meals on the Sabbath and festivals. There are many different tunes for the song. A Yiddish…
Baal T’fillah: Oder, Der practische Vorbeter (Prayer Leader: Or The Practical Litanist)
The first edition of Baal T’fillah was published in 1871. A compendium of over 1,500 Jewish traditional melodies, according to the traditions of German, Polish, and Portuguese (Sephardic) Jews, the…
Torah Cases from the Synagogue of Aleppo, Syria
The Jewish community of Syria dates back to biblical times. After 1492, the original community was augmented by refugees from Spain and Portugal. The centers of Syrian Jewish life were in the cities…
Alms Box
This alms box was affixed to the wall in the Old Synagogue (Alte-Schul, or Stara Bóżnica) of Kraków, located in the Kazimierz district of the city. Because it was in a part of the Polish-Lithuanian…
Kupa Synagogue (Kraków)
The ceiling and wall paintings in the baroque-style Kupa Synagogue in Kraków, which dates from 1643, were damaged during World War II and in a pogrom that occurred in August 1945 immediately following…
Burial Society Cup
This silver beaker is one of two commissioned by the Burial Society of Worms in the eighteenth century. Beakers were used at the ceremony inducting members into the society at its annual banquet…
Ketubah (Bayonne)
This ketubah (marriage contract), was signed in Bayonne, France, whose Jewish community originated with New Christians from Spain and Portugal in the sixteenth century. It marks the wedding of Isaac…
Scuola Canton Synagogue, Venice
The second-oldest building in the Venetian ghetto is the Scuola Canton Synagogue. Built several years after the Scuola Grande Tedesca, the Canton Synagogue also served the Ashkenazic community. The…