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.
Vishniac’s Windows
How long this staring through a window
In an alley-way by few remembered,
Into the obscure, into a room
Empty of all but its walls
Where pictures hang all in shadow
But for one of mild eyes wide,
As…
Cult statues in Assyrian relief
Cult statues in Assyrian relief from the Palace of Tiglath-pileser III (reigned 745–727 BCE) in Kalhu/Calah (today’s Nimrud, Iraq). Although no Mesopotamian cult statues have been found, reliefs such…
Lamelekh Seal Impression with Four-winged Scarab Beetle
Some lamelekh impressions, like this one from Lachish, have a four-winged scarab beetle as their central image. The scarab beetle was an important mythological symbol in Egypt, associated with Khepri…
Words of Ahiqar
Words of Ahiqar, Elephantine, 5th century BCE. This Aramaic manuscript contains the oldest-known version of Ahiqar, a wisdom book that includes proverbs similar to those found in the biblical book of…
The 1948 Generation: Myth, Profile and Memory
Berl Katznelson did much to foster the awareness of “Yizkor” and its literature in the twenty years after Tel Hai, through an explicit reference to the chain of Jewish martyrology and heroism and a…
No Exit from This Jewry
I—a Jewess—am by definition not a member of the species, or: why should a Jewess not have problems with public assistance and with her children? The postwar German Jew, to the extent that such a being…
A Dispirited Rebellion
Much has been written about the split that occurred in Zionist ideology after the removal of the immediate existential threat in the Six Day War—a split that grew increasingly wide with the Yom Kippur…
What Was the Holocaust?
Is the Holocaust definable? Is it desirable to define it? After all, definitions are abstractions from reality and are useful only insofar as they help us to better understand the world around us. Any…
Jewish Scholar
Katherine M. Cohen created a number of sculptures that explored Jewish themes, including Jewish Scholar. She also sculpted, on commission, portrait busts of prominent Philadelphia Jews, such as Judge…
The Sleeping Messiah
Glicenstein depicted the Jewish Messiah as a semi-nude figure in the classical style, with bowed head and tethered to his seat. It received early recognition, admired by Rodin and praised in the…
The Ages of Man
Let but the son of earth Remember from his birth That in the end He shall return: As at his birth he was, So shall he be.“Arise and prosper,” say ye unto himOf five years, whose…