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.
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…
How Does a Newspaper Survive?
In order to survive, a newspaper needs numerous subscribers, the help of the community, paid publications, the aid of the friends of education, the generosity of the nation, and the support of the…
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…
Ketubah with a Depiction of Jerusalem
This ketubah (marriage contract) from Padua, Italy, marks the marriage of Samuel ben Gerson ha-Kohen me-ha-ḥazanim (“of the cantors,” or Cantarini) and Colomba bat David Aziz. The groom was a…
Ketubah between God and Israel for Shavuot
In the Sephardic tradition, a “marriage contract” (ketubah), a symbolic betrothal of God and Israel, is read before the Torah reading on the first day of the holiday of Shavuot, which celebrates the…
Ashkenazic Funeral: Carrying the Body to the Grave
Johann Christoph Georg Bodenschatz’s Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden, sonderlich derer in Deutschland (Religious Constitution of Today’s Jews, Especially Those in Germany), published in…
Silver Torah Crown
This silver Torah crown from Padua, Italy, is decorated with images of the tablets of law, incense utensils, the ark of the covenant,
and the headdress of the high priest.
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…
Shadow and Synagogue
Shadow and Synagogue is one of a series of about one hundred photographs by Tress that appear in his 1975 book, Shadow, A Novel in Photographs. In the book’s visual narrative, the photographer’s…
Trademark
Bulatov created many paintings that paired nature scenes with Soviet slogans, suggesting the pervasiveness of the Soviet regime, extending to every corner of its citizens’ lives. Here, in Trademark…
On the Way from Assembly Point Atzdemeriam to Transit Camp in Teda, Ethiopia
In 1991, Israel launched Operation Solomon, a covert military operation to airlift Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) to Israel. Fourteen thousand men, women, and children were transported to Israel over…
Green on the Outside, Red on the Inside
Green on the Outside, Red on the Inside was rejected by the Venezuelan government as a contribution to the 1995 Venice Biennale. The installation consisted of a small building, resembling the majority…