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.
Israel Museum
The Israel Museum complex was designed to harmonize with its surroundings. Its low, flat-roofed buildings with facings of Jerusalem limestone were intended to resemble an Arab village on a hilltop…
The Condition of the Jews of Western Azerbaijan in the Years 1888–1893
Written today, the 13th of the month of Adar 5653 (March 1, 1893), and addressed by us, the poor and downtrodden members of the community of Urumia, may God protect it, with a thousand greetings and…
Memories of a Childhood Spent in Ottoman Bulgaria
I understood very early that life is a serious business. I do not remember committing any of those childish pranks that everyone keeps in his distant memory. From the age of four I was sent to the mel…
Portrait of Fromet Guggenheim
Fromet Guggenheim (1737–1812) was the eldest daughter of a merchant from Hamburg. She married the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn in 1762. Exceptional for the time, theirs was not an arranged marriage…
From Inside
I am not a representative of the public, nor am I an official party member. My words do not bear an organization’s official stamp of approval, nor did I obtain readers’ endorsements in advance. Rather…
Authorization of Receipt of Donation by Eretz Israel Contribution Fund of Ferrara (Italy) Congregation
This receipt with ornate Hebrew calligraphy was issued to certify a donation by members of Ferrara’s Jewish community to aid Jews in Jerusalem. The funds were solicited by the rabbi of a yeshiva in…
The Legend of the Baal-Shem
This book consists of a descriptive account and twenty stories. The descriptive account speaks of the life of the Hasidim, a Jewish sect of eastern Europe which arose around the middle of…
Paper Cut—Mizraḥ
Paper cuts have been a tradition of Jewish folk art, with the earliest record of one dating to the fourteenth century. Given the widespread availability of paper in Europe by the mid-nineteenth…
Grand Synagogue of Lyon
The Grand Synagogue of Lyon was built shortly after the establishment of a regional consistory by Emperor Napoleon III and the appointment of a regional chief rabbi. In 1858, a new synagogue for the…
Ferdinand II, 1810–1859 Bourbon King of Two Sicilies
Geskel Salomon’s portraits are striking for the way they convey the personalities of their sitters; we, as viewers, feel strongly that we are looking at real, flesh-and-blood people. Here, Salomon has…
Editorial: On Creating Barnard College
At the present moment there are from New York City and suburbs two women students at Cornell, four at Bryn Mawr, thirteen at Smith, seventeen at Vassar (besides fifteen in preparation for it) and…
My Life as German and Jew
I was born and raised in Fuerth, a predominantly Protestant manufacturing city of Middle Franconia, with a large Jewish community consisting principally of artisans and tradesmen. The Jews formed…