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.
Portuguese and Ashkenazic Synagogues in Amsterdam
In 1670, Amsterdam’s Portuguese Jewish community commissioned a new synagogue, which, when finished, was the largest in the world. The master mason Elias Bouman, a non-Jew who had helped design the…
Jewish Bride in Fürth
This print depicting a veiled Jewish bride assisted by two other women is from the beginning of the eighteenth century, a period of prosperity for the city’s Jewish community. There were between 350…
Juedisches Ceremonial (Jewish Ceremony): Death and Mourning
This illustration depicting Jewish death and mourning rituals (a sick man on his deathbed, a body laid out for burial, and a funeral procession) appeared in the book, Jüdisches Ceremoniel (Jewish…
Scuola Grande Tedesca (Venice)
The Scuola Grande Tedesca is the oldest of five synagogues in the Venetian ghetto and was built in 1528 by the local Ashkenazic community. Although only its five windows are visible from the street…
Chendamangalam Synagogue (Cochin, India)
Built in the early fifteenth century and rebuilt in 1614 following a fire, the Chendamangalam Synagogue served members of the Malabari Jewish community, descendants of Cochin’s earliest Jews, who are…
All-Merciful God
Gershuni was a significant figure in the Israeli art scene, and over the course of his career, his art underwent dramatic changes in style and themes. His life work is evidence of his assertion from…
Untitled (Horowitz Margareten Matzohs)
This painting of a box of Horowitz Margareten matzah, a popular U.S. brand, is a clear reference to the images of Campbell soup cans and other consumer products that Andy Warhol made in the 1960s…
A Sad Story
Although Bergner did not personally experience the Holocaust, it was a recurring theme in his art. Here, in a painting in the style of a child’s drawing, a child wearing a hat, typical of others seen…
Chronicle
In the year 5289 (1528/29), the holy martyrs of Pösing, 36 souls—men and women, youths and young girls—were arrested because of a false accusation made by a mamzer, and they died for the…
Ḥayye Yehudah (The Life of Judah)
At the beginning of the month of Tammuz 5349 [began June 15, 1589], in order not to remain idle, I began to give lessons in Torah to the son of Manasseh Levi of blessed memory and to Joseph the son of…
Sefer ha-ḥezyonot (The Book of Visions): On the Afterlife
That year my wife, Hannah, became extremely ill and one Sabbath she was in a coma and close to death. At night, at the conclusion of the Sabbath, we approached her to witness the departure of the…
Testament (Istanbul)
[Hebrew:] We the undersigned, when the honorable old lady, Sra. Blanca, widow of R. Daniel Yeshurun (may his…