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 Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Leghorn, Italy
In the nineteenth century, especially in the era before photography, it was common for artists to travel to exotic or picturesque locations in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, and to produce…
Fisherman’s Wife Mourning at the Shore
A woman holding an infant sits on a rock under a gloomy sky at twilight or dawn. In the background is the wreck of a boat. Julius Muhr painted other sentimental and romantic paintings like this one…
At the Restaurant
Though Benjamin-Eugène Fichel is better known for his historical paintings set in the eighteenth century, in this painting he documents modernity itself. Here a wealthy couple orders a meal in a…
The Beginnings of the Jewish Social Democratic Workers Party, Po‘ale Tsiyon
The first Po‘ale Tsiyon group in Poltava was born out of the theoretical battle between Zionism and the journal Iskra [the organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party]. Up until 1905, [Dov Ber]…
What Is Jewish Secular Culture?
We take Jewish secular culture here in its modern shape, its language form, Yiddish. It is not the first expression of worldly or secular Jewish culture. In ancient times almost the entire cultural…
The Jewish Woman
The position of the Jewish woman in Germany today cannot be ascertained from understanding the present alone. A brief look at the recent and distant past—perhaps even the long-distant past—is…
The Jewish Population of the Cities and Towns of Belorussia
Our study examines the changes that took place in the size of the Jewish population of Belorussia over the last three decades, based on data provided by two censuses: the general…
The Basic Ideas of Biblical Religion
The Jewish people did not begin to philosophize because of an irresistible urge to do so. They received philosophy from outside sources, and the history of Jewish philosophy is a history of the…
The Meaning of Repentance
The mystery of prayer on the days of Rosh Hashanah presents itself with characteristic familiarity: it reveals itself to those who want to fulfill it, and eludes those who want only to know it.
Prayer…
White Challah
One day a neighbor broke the leg of a stray dog with a heavy stone, and when Vasil saw the sharp edge of the bone piercing the skin he cried. The tears streamed from his eyes, his mouth, and his…
Power/Jew Süss
[ . . . ] After the intractable insolence shown by Süss when his sentence was pronounced, he was fettered cross-wise in the Chamber of Nobles, where he was to be confined until execution, and kept…
The Workers’ Club
Every now and then a different door in the long corridor of the IsPolKom [Executive Committee] would yawn open, partly exposing the profiles of the office workers, emit a hum of muffled chatter and…