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.
Psalm 92, Od yenuvun (They Shall Still Bring Forth)
This setting for Psalm 92 is one example of the innovative music composed by Louis Lewandowski, Samuel Naumbourg, and Salomon Sulzer (1804–1890) for the synagogues of the new Reform movement. Their…
Tombstone of Joel ben Ze’ev
This tombstone of Joel ben Ze’ev, who died in 1744, is topped with a carving of an eagle. Winged griffins and eagles symbolize God’s power. Only the wealthy could afford stone markers before the…
Contract of David Oppenheim with the Prague Jewish Community
David Oppenheim (1664–1736) was the chief rabbi of Prague. Born in Worms, he was the son of a communal leader and nephew of Samuel Oppenheim (1630–1703), financier and war contractor to the Habsburg…
Funeral Activities
Between 1723 and 1737, illustrator Bernard Picart partnered with the Dutch bookseller, editor, and publisher Jean-Frédéric Bernard on Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (R…
Sefirotic Diagram of the First Man
According to the colophon, Natan Hammerschlag’s Ilan de-adam kadmon (Sefirotic Diagram of the First Man) was copied from the writings of Ḥayim Vital, the most prominent disciple of Isaac Luria…
Urbino Synagogue, Italy
This Torah ark, installed in a synagogue in the Italian town of Urbino, is a fine example of Renaissance Judaica. Carved from walnut in the early sixteenth century, the ark belonged to the Sephardic…
Scuola Greca (Corfu)
Built in the seventeenth century, the Scuola Greca is a synagogue located in the area of the ghetto in which Jews were confined in 1622, in a neighborhood still known as “Evraiki” (Jews). It is the…
Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins
The children's book Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins was written by Eric Kimmel and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Featuring the legendary Jewish hero Hershel of Ostropol pitted against goblins…
Untitled
Shachar began to mold and cast human body parts from life early in his career. Here, hands carry the body of a young girl wrapped in a sheet, perhaps alluding to the Virgin Mary supporting the dead…
Biography of Isaac Abravanel
The author had a tradition from his ancestors, also based on a book of his genealogy that was lost in all the upheavals of the expulsion and the persecutions, that this holy and lofty family, whose…
Tit ha-yaven (The Miry Clay)
Now we shall begin to describe the confrontation of the King of Sweden with the King of Poland. First, the aforementioned King of Sweden came to the holy community of Posen [Poznań], a major Jewish…
Tsemaḥ David (The Sprout of David)
Thus spoke David, son of Isaac, son of Eliezer, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Menahem, son of Isaac, son of Obadiah, son of Isaac—known as “the wealthy one”—son of Elijah, known as “the holy…