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.
The History of the Shulḥan ‘arukh and Its Popularization
In those days a new light shone forth over the skies of Polish Jewry—R. Solomon Luria. [ . . . ] This great rabbi was one of those unique individuals, one of those few men of virtue that not every…
The Face of East European Jewry
Is this the Jew of the East? Is he an old man, who, almost entirely removed from the present day and certainly removed from the future, lives a life that is limited to the most oppressed and narrowest…
The War for Our Nation
[By “war”] I mean concrete war—rather than a war of words or an incomplete war of demonstrations. I am not in denial regarding the existence of these words or those demonstrations, and neither do I…
Prepared
A searing poetic response to a 1916 survey, by Martha Gruening, a tireless advocate for women’s rights and African American rights.
A Sponsored Review of Dos Pintele Yid
It is the duty of all Jews in New York and the vicinity to come to the People’s Theater on Thanksgiving—matinee and evening—as well as every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to…
Jewish Immigrants on the SS Patricia
Immigrants on a ship from Hamburg, Germany, arriving in New York, December 10, 1906. They were among the 15 million immigrants who came to the United States between 1900 and 1915. Most of the…
Self-Portrait with a Palette
Yehudah Pen painted this self-portrait shortly after opening the School of Drawing and Painting in Vitebsk, which over the twenty years of its existence attracted hundreds of young men and women…
Le Cantique des Cantiques (The Song of Songs)
This erotic illustration by Joseph Chaikov was made for a lavish edition of the biblical Song of Songs published by the Yiddish Kultur-lige in Kiev in 1918–1919. The forms of the embracing couple here…
Purim Page (Mi-she-nikhnas adar)
This lithograph of a micrographic drawing, believed to be from Poland, reproduces the text of the scroll of Esther in its entirety, as well as prayers and poems for the holiday of Purim. In the center…
Morris Rosenfeld
Jacob Epstein, “Morris Rosenfeld,” from Hutchins Hapgood’s The Spirit of the Ghetto: Studies of the Jewish Quarter in New York. Epstein was best-known for his sculptures, but he also created the…
Samson and Delilah
Cover of Der groyser kundes: A zhurnal far humor, vitz un satire (July 12, 1912), with a cartoon by Lola (Leon Israel). Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson is portrayed as Delilah, cutting off the…
Mirele Efros
This is a program for an October 26, 1898, production of Mirele Efros at the Thalia Theatre, located at 46–48 Bowery on New York City’s Lower East Side.