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 Water Sprite—Polka
Louis Gottschalk wrote “The Water Sprite—Polka de Salon” soon upon his return to the United States after spending most of his teenaged years in Europe, where he was sent by his father to study music…
Map of the Land of Israel
This map, in a manuscript copy of Be’er mayim ḥayim (A Spring of Living Water), a commentary on Rashi published in Worms or Friedberg in the late fifteenth or sixteenth century, is based on Rashi’s…
House of David de Pinto
Originating from the Iberian Peninsula, the de Pinto family were wealthy merchant bankers who lived in Amsterdam from the seventeenth century on. In Spain, members of the family had converted to…
Great Synagogue (Lutsk, Ukraine)
The Great Synagogue of Lutsk (Łuck) in Ukraine was built in 1626. Renaissance in style, the synagogue is an example of a fortress synagogue, built not only as a house of worship but also with the…
Tombs in the Holy Land
This map showing tombs in the land of Israel was drawn in Italy by a Jewish scribe and is an example of a “pilgrimage scroll.” Pilgrimage scrolls, also known as itineraries, included visual and…
Ketubah (Rome)
This rare example of a Roman ketubah (marriage contract) from the seventeenth century was written on the occasion of the marriage of Menahem ben Samuel Zadik to Zevia, daughter of the prominent banker…
Old Synagogue (Krakow)
The Old Synagogue (Alte-Schul, or Stara Bożnica) of Kraków is located in the Kazimierz district of the city. Because it was in a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth vulnerable to attack by…
Bevis Marks Synagogue, London
Joseph Avis, a Quaker carpenter, was commissioned to build the first synagogue in England following the readmission of Jews in 1656: the synagogue of London’s Spanish and Portuguese community, on…
Statue of Liberty
Best known for his New York City street photography, Speier was always on the lookout for unexpected and often humorous juxtapositions of incongruous elements to photograph. In this scene, visitors to…
Lost Flowers
In the 1970s, Weisel, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, made a series of abstract paintings inspired by her father’s tattoo from Auschwitz. The central rectangle in this painting resembles a…
Untitled
Bar-El uses found materials as base materials, painting and writing directly onto street signs, discarded furniture, posters, and other objects that he scavenges from the streets of Tel Aviv…