Hero Image

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.
Tooltip info icon

Diving into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am…

Woodchucks

Gassing the woodchucks didn’t turn out right. The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange was featured as merciful, quick at the bone and the case we had against them was airtight, both exits…

Jacob the Liar

And the resistance, I will be asked: Where is the resistance? Could it be that the heroes are gathering in the shoe factory or in the freight yard, at least a few? Is it possible that at the ghetto’s…

The Chosen

For the first fifteen years of our lives, Danny and I lived within five blocks of each other and neither of us knew of the other’s existence. [ . . . ] Danny and I probably would never have met—or we…
Painting of domestic interior showing figures of men and women listening to a man reading.
Tooltip info icon

An Early Reading of Shakespeare

Responding to a growing interest in Shakespeare among the English, Hart’s painting imagines what it might have been like to hear Shakespeare’s works read out loud, shortly after they became available…
Two-seater bench with central armrest, decorated on the seat backs with ritual objects and Hebrew text.
Tooltip info icon

Circumcision Bench

In Ashkenazic communities, circumcision benches with two seats were sometimes used from the nineteenth century on, one for the sandek, the godfather on whose lap the baby boy is circumcised, and one…
Portrait painting of woman in dress and decorative shawl sitting with natural landscape in background.
Tooltip info icon

Portrait of Amalie Beer

The daughter of the wealthiest Jew (Liepmann Meyer Wulff) in Berlin at the turn of the century and married to a wealthy sugar refiner (Jacob Herz Beer), Amalie (Malka) Beer (1767–1854) was a…
Photograph of building façade with significant decorative trim on window frames and beams.
Tooltip info icon

Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue

Kneseth Eliyahoo was endowed in honor of Baghdad-born Eliyahoo (Elias) David Sassoon (1820–1880), son of textile magnate David Sassoon (1792–1864), by Elias’s sons. The synagogue was constructed in…
Postcard depicting exterior of building with many columns built into its walls.
Tooltip info icon

Wertheim Department Store

The Warenhaus Wertheim was owned by the Jewish Wertheim family, whose chain of department stores enjoyed significant financial success until the Nazis cut off their revenue. The façade of the massive…
Painting of building with two-tiered roof and Hebrew and Yiddish writing on bottom of page.
Tooltip info icon

Painting of the Żólkiew Synagogue

This painting exemplifies the decorative plaques that sometimes adorned the eastern walls of synagogues to commemorate the glory of the Temple in Jerusalem and indicate the direction of prayer. In…