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.
Come to Palestine
Raban was known as a designer, painter, and book illustrator but also designed at least two posters, including this one for the Society for the Promotion of Travel in the Holy Land. The poster’s…
Jew from Poland
Lerski’s portrait of a young Polish Jewish immigrant to Palestine is in his distinctive, expressionist style. Using mirrors and reflectors to emphasize the transformative powers of light, Lerski liked…
Portrait of Fanny von Arnstein
Fanny von Arnstein (née Itzig; 1758–1818) was born into a prominent Jewish banking family in Berlin and married a leading Viennese financier. She entertained many luminaries at her famous salon. Having…
A Jewish Wedding in South Russia
Of all festivities celebrated among the Jews in southern Russia, the wedding ceremony has suffered the greatest loss of characteristic elements of folk tradition. Even among the poorest, weddings are…
For the Sixtieth Jubilee of the Poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik
Yeshurun sings, when in him it sees a delicate beauty in the bloom of her youth
playing the lyre in her bosom’s embrace, her song gladdening the sorrowful heart.
A charming doe [even] without kohl…
History of the Colony of Suriname
We will briefly mention several of his more important military expeditions. In the year 1731, Mr. Boeyé, Officer of the Christian Citizens Militia, received an order from the Council to carry out a…
Map of the City of Venice, ca. 1729
This eighteenth-century map of Venice includes the ghetto within which the city’s Jews were required to live from 1516 until Napoleon’s conquest of the Republic of Venice in 1797. The Venice ghetto…
The Esnoga (Portuguese Synagogue) in Amsterdam
To celebrate the opening of the Esnoga synagogue in Amsterdam in 1675, the Sephardic community commissioned the distinguished artist Romeyn de Hooghe to depict its dedication. In 1670, Amsterdam’s…
Jewish Divorce Proceedings
This engraving from a Dutch translation of Leone Modena’s Historia de’ riti Ebraici (History of the Jewish Rites) pictures a Jewish divorce ceremony in Amsterdam, in which the wife is presented with a…
Ketubah (Damascus)
This ketubah (marriage contract) from Damascus, signed on the 21st of Shevat 5466, or February 5, 1706, features a text set within an arch, and flanked on both sides and above with green and orange…
The Hanging of Jud Süss
Joseph ben Issachar Süsskind Oppenheimer was a financier and court Jew who served as adviser to Duke Karl Alexander of Württemberg. Economic reforms enacted by Karl Alexander (and informed by…
Bomberg Jerusalem Talmud
Printing, which Jews adopted immediately after its invention, helped to unify far-flung communities. Where previously Jewish learning had been transmitted through the individual copying of manuscripts…