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.
Y’minah, Y’minah
“Y’minah, Y’minah,” c. 1941. Photo credit: The Dorot Jewish Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.
Sideways
Within a few weeks the season arrived for merry walks in the marvelous woods, gay boat rides on the river, poetic campfires beneath dark, satiny skies, boisterous breachings of the silence of the…
Tel Aviv
This building, photographed by Liselotte Grschebina, is one of approximately four thousand Bauhaus-style buildings constructed in Tel Aviv, the most of any city in the world. The Nazi Party’s rise to…
The Deserted
Rosie thought about father—a repressed anxiety that never disappeared altogether and lingered as a dark shadow behind a light and joyful life, like the pale backdrop to a colorful stage—but she did…
At Night
At night once, I awoke in the dark, crowded, loudly snoring railroad car; instantly I saw him on the seat across from me and instantly I recognized him. There he sat, the old, familiar night-Jew, who…
The Cursed Well
Even though the town has a well right in the middle of the marketplace, many of its finest people use river water that they have to carry from the edge of the town half a mile away. The river water is…
“Untitled,” from The Book of Satires
Everyone loved . . . it was a plague
of infatuation, of kisses;
But the people soon became quiet,
the mothers were already nursing.
The drum of youth was laid
in the corner, and the…
Torah Ark Curtain
Each of the four-sided shapes on Siona Shimshi’s Torah ark curtain represents a Jewish holiday, except for the one at left (second from top) with an image of hands arranged for a priestly blessing…
A Report on the Community of Isfahan
In response to questions put by the correspondent of the journal Der Israelit of Mayence to the (Chief) Rabbi of the Jewish community of Isfahan concerning the situation of that community, the (Chief…
Adam and Eve
This wall hanging by Saul Borisov depicts Adam and Eve, naked but for fig leaves, not separate beings but still attached to one another, possibly hiding from God after eating the fruit from the…
Among the Breslover Hasidim
If a visitor to Berditchev wishes to hear a typical Jewish melody, let him listen to Reb Nisson Belzer’s protégé. If it is Berditchever Chassidic song he desires, he should go to the Karliner shtibel…
From the Fair
4.
There are faces that God created to enchant you at first glance. Adore me, the face proclaims, and you adore it without knowing…