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.
Popular Poetry of the Russian Jews
[ . . . ] Similarly, the Russian Jews use the traditional rhyming couplet in those verses that chronicle a historical event or inculcate an ethical truth. The real folksongs, however, are set to music…
Sermon on the Melting Pot
There is no denying that under the influence of this enthusiasm for America, the disintegrating process of the Melting Pot is taking place in large measure. That it is not, fortunately, taking place…
An Exchange on the Jewish Question
Is there a Jewish people? Thousands of Jews, whose language at school and in daily discourse is Hebrew, are again living in Palestine. Neo-Hebrew literature has essayists like Ahad Ha-Am, poets like B…
The End of the Jewish People?
At last you admit that Israel, caught up in the wave of technical progress, is becoming an industrial society “like the others.” You find it acceptable that the Jews, transformed in the…
The Rise of Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism is a phenomenon of man’s restless spirit. At its best it is a dynamic faith—and its very dynamism…
La Buena Esperansa (The Good Hope)
Hamburg, July 7. (Personal communication) In Smyrna, a newspaper will now be published in the Jewish-Spanish language commonly spoken there, entitled La Buena Esperansa. We have the prospectus dated…
Map of Jerusalem
In this seventeenth-century map, Jerusalem is depicted as a fairly dense city within a wall, with only a few structures outside. Men in Arab dress stand in small groups conversing with one another in…
A Polish Jew
This depiction of a Polish Jew first appeared in a book, Neu-eröffnete Welt-Galleria (New Gallery of the World), published in Nuremberg in 1703. Its 101 plates by Caspar Luyken included portraits of…
Portrait of Jud Süss
Joseph ben Issachar Süsskind Oppenheimer (1698–1738) was a financier and court Jew who served as adviser to Duke Karl Alexander. Economic reforms enacted by Karl Alexander (and informed by Oppenheimer…
Portrait of Isaac Aboab da Fonseca
This engraving portrays Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, a rabbi, kabbalist, and preacher, born in Castro Daire, Portugal, to a family of New Christians. He arrived in Amsterdam with his family at the age of…
Technical Diagram from Joseph Delmedigo’s Elim
This is a technical diagram from Joseph Delmedigo’s Sefer Elim (Book of Elim), a scientific and philosophical work published by Menasseh Ben Israel.
Polyglot Bible (Constantinople)
This is the frontispiece and first page of the Constantinople Polyglot Bible, the first of two multilingual editions of the Pentateuch printed by Eliezer Soncino in Constantinople. It contained the…