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.
The Music Room of Fanny Hensel
Fanny Hensel (1805–1847), the granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and financier Daniel Itzig, and sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, was born in Hamburg into a wealthy…
Medal with the Image of Judith and Moses Montefiore
This medal by master engraver Charles Wiener honors the Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore (1784–1885) and his wife, Lady Judith Montefiore (1784–1862). Montefiore was an activist on behalf of…
Self-Portrait
Theresa Concordia Mengs painted this self-portrait with pastels, her preferred medium, when she was about twenty years old, a few years after her family moved from Dresden to Rome.
The Death of Moses
The object of this publication, an Ethiopian text, is taken from a book of Falasha prayers which I acquired from Dabtarà Bàrok, a Jewish man of letters, in Adenkato. It contains the…
Robert le diable
Robert le diable (Robert the Devil) is an opera in five acts composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer between 1827 and 1831. One of the first grand operas, it caused a sensation when it debuted at the Paris…
The Basel Program
The aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law.The Congress contemplates the following means to the attainment of this end:
- The promotion, on suitable…
Letter to Herzl from Zionists in Morocco
March 17, 190318 Adar, 5663Safi—May He Who is on high make its Foundation firm(Morocco)To His Honor, the Exalted President, Lover of His People, Glory of His Nation, Our Distinguished Lord, Dr. Theodo…
Moses Mendelssohn, the German and Jewish Philosopher
Moses Mendelssohn’s German Philosophy did not survive him and his generation of the German Aufklärer. As the leading German philosopher, apart from some psychological and aesthetical theories, he…
Letter to Mendele
Dedication to My Dearly Beloved Grandfather, Reb Mendalle Mocher SephorimTo my dear grandfather, greetings!Stempenyu, my first long novel, which I inscribe to you, is yours; not only because I have…
An Argument: On Expanding Our Literature
I hear it said: On the contrary, inasmuch as the things most essential for the life of a people have been forcibly taken from our people’s soul, and we stand miraculously in midair like the mem and…
A Hot Shabbat Day
It was Shabbat morning. I was still lying in bed. My mother was already up and awake, wearing her clean white headdress. The other bed opposite mine, where my mother would sleep, was already made…