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.
Esarhaddon’s Prism Nineveh A
I mobilized the kings of Hatti and “Beyond-the-River”: Baal, king of Tyre; Manasseh, king of Judah; Kaus-gabri, king of Edom; Mutsuri, king of Moab; Tsilli-Bel, king of Gaza; Mitinti, king of Ashkelon…
KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation, Chicago, Detail of Decoration at the Balcony Level
In designing this synagogue, Alschuler drew on photographs of the remains of a second-century Byzantine synagogue in Tiberias. He wrote that he designed the synagogue “not in sense of slavish…
Dancing Lesson
Soyer’s informal family portrait, Dancing Lesson, has become an iconic image of the American Jewish experience, appearing on many book covers and exhibition catalogs. It was painted about thirteen…
The Dark Pilgrimage
In the year 1885, a few days after the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, it began to rain in the plains surrounding the rivers Rednitz and Pegnitz and continued to do so almost…
In the Mountains
And around us loomed the mountains, various heights, various shapes, squeezed together or clambering atop one another. Some were terrifying with their rugged lines, some were soft and delicate like a…
The Making of Americans
It’s a great question this question of washing. One never can find anyone who can be satisfied with anybody else’s washing. I knew a man once who never as far as anyone could see ever did any washing…
Motke the Thief
The street lamps of the Old Town began to flare out in preparation for the night. And soon the yellow gas-lights shone in the shop windows too, and outside the little…
A Few Say:
Day unto day bequeaths its fading sun,
and night after night laments for night.
Summer after summer is gathered in fall
and the world in its sorrow gives song.
Tomorrow we’ll die, the word in us…
Benjamin, One of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, Stained-Glass Window, Hadassah Medical Centre, Jerusalem
In the late 1950s, Marc Chagall began to work on stained-glass windows for the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. Each of the twelve windows that were ultimately created for the hospital’s…
A Vision of Yemen: An Ashkenazic Visitor
[ . . . ] [A]n Ashkenazic sage came to Ṣanʿāʾ in the time of Sar Shalom al-ʿIrāqī (d. 1780) . . . and stayed at his house and ate at his table. Fearing for the Ashkenazi’s life, Sar Shalom told him…
Memoirs of a Man’s Maiden Years
This book tells a true story. In it, what was probably the strangest youth who ever lived, shall speak with its own voice. This life needs to be believed, as strange as it may seem. But strangeness…
Portrait of Fanny von Arnstein
Fanny von Arnstein (née Itzig; 1758–1818) was born into a prominent Jewish banking family in Berlin and married a leading Viennese financier. She entertained many luminaries at her famous salon. Having…