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 French Enlightenment and the Jews
The era of Western history that began with the French Revolution ended in Auschwitz. The emancipation of the Jews was reversed in the most horrendous way. For a short while after 1945 the reigning…
Gentleman’s Agreement
Every article you’ve done for us, Phil,” Minify had said, “has a kind of human stuff in it. The right answers get in it somehow.”
Sure. But he hadn’t asked for them and pried for them. When he’d…
The Last Mohican
Behind him, a short distance to the right, he had noticed a stranger—give a skeleton a couple of pounds—loitering near a bronze statue on a stone pedestal of the heavy-dugged Etruscan wolf suckling…
Even the Heavens Tell Lies
When I crossed the ocean, I carried with me the habit of speaking to the shadows, and it became my way of life. I look up at the stars that were extinguished long ago. For me they still shine with the…
The Kamzan (The Miser)
There was once a Mohel, who was very avaricious. He had inherited some money, and his sole pleasure was to augment his wealth, and count his gold and silver coin. In his own opinion he was a religious…
Note on the Emancipation of the Jews of Russia
For the purposes of preparing for this emancipation, four measures are proposed: 1) the establishment of a Jewish newspaper in Russian; 2) the establishment of a scholarly literary journal in Yiddish…
Response to a Writer’s Letter in Jutrzenka, January 3, 1862
Correspondence
Warsaw, 15 December 1861
Mr. Medard’s reply to our letter dated 15 November has not, in the least, surprised us; we had indeed expected it, exactly in the form in which it is composed…
Marsch der Israelitischen national Garde in Warschau
This illustration depicts three Polish Jewish soldiers taking part in the Polish uprising of 1830 and 1831. The rendering of an “Israelite National Guard in Warsaw” alongside solemn, patriotic music…
Statement upon the Publication of Denkschrift an die hochgeehrte Wiener israelitische Cultus (Memorandum to the Esteemed Viennese Israelite Religious Community)
In the first place, it behoves us to fight the opinion that the regeneration of the service can be achieved only by a complete break with the past, by abolishing all traditional and inherited…
Medal Honoring Eleazar ben Samuel’s Appointment as Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi in Amsterdam
In 1735, Eleazar ben Samuel arrived in Amsterdam to take up the post of chief rabbi of the Ashkenazic community. To mark the occasion, Joel ben Lippman Levi minted a medal. On the front of the medal…
Kupa Synagogue (Kraków)
The ceiling and wall paintings in the baroque-style Kupa Synagogue in Kraków, which dates from 1643, were damaged during World War II and in a pogrom that occurred in August 1945 immediately following…
Jewish Bride in Fürth
This print depicting a veiled Jewish bride assisted by two other women is from the beginning of the eighteenth century, a period of prosperity for the city’s Jewish community. There were between 350…