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.
Tombstone of Isaac ben Hayyim
This tombstone of Isaac ben Ḥayim, who died in 1728, includes (at the top) a pair of deer and a pair of lions, animal carvings that often appeared on Jewish tombstones in Eastern Europe. They…
Ark and Two Cathedrae
This wooden Torah ark and its two cathedrae (chairs), from the Scuola Grande Synagogue in Mantua, Italy, date from 1543. Decorated with gilt carvings and architectural elements, they were meant to…
Tombstone (Rome)
This tombstone of Abraham Roccas (d. 1587) is located in the Cloister of the Papal Archbasilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, in Rome, Italy.
Huppah Stone (Traustein)
For German Jews, it was traditional in the wedding ceremony for the groom to perform the ritual of breaking a glass in remembrance of the destruction of the Temple by hurling it or banging it against…
Sefirotic Tree
This elaborate Italian kabbalistic manuscript depicts the inner processes of the divine (the sefirot) in the shape of a tree (in Hebrew, ilan), or tree of life. Visualization plays an important part…
Ketubah (Rome)
This intricately decorated ketubah (marriage contract) marks the marriage of Gabriel ben Hezekiah Amron to Simḥa bat Shabbetai mi-Segni. It is richly decorated with biblical miniatures, including one…
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…
Jewish Widow and Jewish Matron
This watercolor from the Gennadius Library’s Costume Album collection, in Athens, depicts two Jewish women—a widow (left) and a married woman (right)—in the colorful traditional attire of…
Sefer ha-kavanot (Kabbalistic Intentions in Prayer and Performance of Precepts)
This manuscript copy of Sefer ha-kavanot (The Book of [Kabbalistic] Intentions [in Prayer and Performance of Precepts]) by Ḥayim Vital was written in Meknes, Morocco. The kabbalists in Safed stressed…
Love among the Palms
Six days left. Less than a week! That means, after next Saturday I would no longer see Sayyid. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t change my clothes. I gritted my teeth, because I was afraid the shriek…
History of Matzah: The Story of the Jews, Part I
The History of Matzah: The Story of the Jews, Part I, is part of a triptych series that employs text and three-dimensional elements in relief to chronicle Jewish history from Moses to the birth of the…
Lament on the Ukrainian Massacre
[To the tune of “Adir ayom ve-nora.”]Come, dear friends, let us cry and lamentThe horrible things that have happened in these times.In the year that Messiah was expected amid tribulation [1648],Cossa…