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.
Synagogue (Bechhofen, Germany)
The Bechhofen Synagogue (built in 1685) is believed to have been the largest wooden synagogue in Germany. The interior of the synagogue was painted with lavish decorations in 1732 and 1733, in typical…
Horb Synagogue (Horb am Main, Germany)
The interior of the wooden Horb synagogue (completed in 1735) is richly decorated in typical East European style, which artist Eliezer Zusman, originally from Brody, introduced to southern Germany…
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…
Sephardic Synagogue (Pesaro, Italy)
Home to a Jewish community from at least the thirteenth century, Pesaro later became the refuge of Portuguese and Spanish Jews in the sixteenth century. In 1642, a few years after the town’s Jews were…
Paradesi Synagogue (Cochin, India)
Built in 1568, the Paradesi Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in India, as well as in the entire British Commonwealth. The land on which it was built was a gift from the Rajah of Cochin, Paraja, so…
Illustrations from Sefer minhagim (Book of Customs)
These woodcuts appeared in Sefer minhagim (Book of Customs), a very popular Yiddish book published by Giovanni di Gara, the leading publisher of Jewish books in Venice from 1564 to 1609. It was the…
Menaḥem Egozi’s Gal shel egozim (Nut Garden)
This book was printed in Belvedere, outside Constantinople, by Reina Nasi, the daughter of Gracia Nasi, and widow of Joseph. She was the first Jewish woman to establish her own press.