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.
Emet Ve-Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism
Halakhah consists of the norms taught by the Jewish tradition, how one is to live as a Jew. Most Jewish norms are embodied in the laws of the…
The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism
What should your intention be as you draw near to this wisdom?
Pursuing the straight path, dividing your time between Bible, Talmud, and this wisdom, partaking of each…
Ecology
Through narrative, poetry, law, and prayer, the Bible conditions its readers to feel reverence for nature, enjoins restraint in the exploitation of natural resources for human needs, elicits awe in…
Portrait of Madame Peretz Hirshbein
By the 1920s, the Montparnasse artist Chana Orloff was a popular portrait sculptor, inspired by cubism and classical and “primitive” art. Her flowing, smooth-surfaced sculptures in wood or bronze…
Alla Nazimova as Hedda Gabler
Napoleon Sarony took this photograph of Alla Nazimova in the English-language performance of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. Alla Nazimova (1879–1945) was born Mariam Edez Adelaida Leventon in Yalta, Crimea, to…
Kerch, Crimea (Grief)
When Dmitri Baltermants took this picture in January 1942, he and the other Soviet photographers who were accompanying liberating troops did not at first understand what they were seeing. Were these…
Sculpture of Ben-Gurion
By the time she created this statue of David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of the State of Israel, Chana Orloff had moved away from the cubist style she favored early in her career to a more…
The Street Drummer
Joyous, free, the bird will sing,
Trembles on his throne the king,
Trembling is not good for me—
Like a bird I sing so free,
As winds prance,
In a trance,
Wild and blind, I roam and dance,
One street…
Legend
On the shores of the Sea of Galilee
Lies a palace of great majesty.
There God’s garden is planted,
But not a single tree sways.
Silence; no wave is heard,
Above, every flying bird
Is still and…
Mirele Efros
Sheyndele:Mother-in-law . . . I want you to know what all of us in this household really feel. You’re getting old. It’s time for you to take a rest. And besides, frankly, you hold the entire estate in…
Holocaust and Rebirth (Kibbutz Nezer Sereni, Israel)
Kibbutz Netzer Sereni was established by Holocaust survivors from the Buchenwald concentration camp. In fact, its original name was Kibbutz Buchenwald. It is now named for Enzo Sereni, an Italian…
Sukkah Decoration
This micrographic drawing designed for a sukkah decoration is the best-known artwork of Israel David Luzzatto. Micrography, a form of drawing originally created by scribes, in which lines of miniature…