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.
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious
The occurrence of self-criticism as a determinant may explain how it is that a number of the most apt jokes . . . have grown up on the soil of Jewish popular life. They are stories created by Jews and…
Is There a Need for a World Sephardi Federation? A Debate by Jewish Delegates in Vienna
My brothers and teachers: for some years, since I was enlightened by the luminous erudition of our pious forefathers, the rabbis in Babylon and the wise writers from Spain, my attention…
Flesh and Spirit
In the early period of Jewish history there was a considerable party which took a materialistic view of the national life, in the sense that it had no ideal beyond that of making the State supreme at…
Notes in Response to the Zionist Cause
3 Shevat 5663 [January 31, 1903]
From all the Zionist essays emerge that which we see with our very eyes: their entire purpose and effort is to instill the supposition among Jews that the Torah and…
From Death-Camp to Existentialism: A Psychiatrist’s Path to a New Therapy
In attempting this psychological presentation and a psychopathological explanation of the typical characteristics of a concentration camp inmate, I may give the impression that the human being is…
At the Heart of the Harem
Esteemed by his bosses, envied by his friends, husband of an intelligent wife, owner of a lovely house, Si Bou-Djemaa might well have been happy if the desire for a new wife had not tormented him.
Tal…
Is the Printing Press Harmful? A Rabbi from Sarajevo Responds
How great is the benefit of the printing houses, for thanks to the power of the printing press, the Torah is enhanced everywhere in the world. The rabbis are certainly making the effort to produce…
Plunder of the Ghetto Following the Fettmilch Riots against the Jews of Frankfurt am Main Plunder of the Ghetto
In August 1614, a gingerbread baker named Vincenz Fettmilch (d. 1616) led a mob that rampaged through the Judengasse (Jews’ street) in Frankfurt am Main, injuring and killing two or three Jews…
Ketubah (Amsterdam)
This ketubah was written and illustrated for the wedding of Isaac Pereira and Rachel de Pinto, members of prominent Sephardic families. At the top a pair of hands clasp, and vignettes along the sides…
Velika Avlija (Old Synagogue), Sarajevo
The Velika Avlija (Old Temple or Synagogue) is the oldest synagogue in Sarajevo. It served the city’s first Jewish community, Sephardim, who began arriving in Sarajevo in the mid-sixteenth century…
Portrait of Simcha Vaz (1582–1643), painted by her son, Moses Belmonte
Simcha (Gimar) Belmonte (born Vaz; 1582–1643) was the wife of Jakob Israel Belmonte (a poet, writer, and trader). She and her husband were among the founders of the Jewish community in Amsterdam after…
Yom Tov Lipmann Mühlhausen’s Sefer ha-nitsaḥon
This is an image of the title page of the first printing of Yom Tov Lipmann Mühlhausen’s Sefer ha-nitsaḥon (The Book of Victory). The book was first published in Altdorf in 1644 by the priest Theodore…