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.
Esther Scroll
The book of Esther is chanted aloud from a scroll (megillah) on the holiday of Purim. This example from the Netherlands is lavishly decorated, with the Hebrew text framed by arcades between which are…
Latin-Hebrew Edition of Jossipon
The supposed author of Josippon (an account of Jewish history from the Garden of Eden to the destruction of the Second Temple) was Josephus Flavius, though it is now generally believed that the book…
Moth
Ben-Zvi’s early paintings focused on ecology and nature. He often depicted human and ecological disasters, calling attention to the fragility of human and animal life. The birds and insects featured…
Untitled
Though Nikel’s style of expressionist abstraction has sometimes been characterized as lyrical abstraction, a style associated with Israel’s New Horizons group, she was not formally connected with any…
Former Tajik Barbers with Their Israeli Customers
In 1978, anthropologist Frédéric Brenner began traveling around the world with the aim of creating a visual record of the Jewish diaspora at the end of the twentieth century. Over the course of his…
Chronicle of Fez
I have found written in the handwriting of the sage, our master, the crown and glory that rests upon our heads, the perfect sage and excellent judge, who is modest and happy in all his affairs. His…
Wedding Poem for Jacob Teixeira and Sarah Ximenes
Jacob Teixeira was born in Amsterdam in 1724 to Judith Nunes Henriques (b. Amsterdam, 1703–1732) and Joseph Teixeira (b. London, 1699–1775), who descended from the wealthy Portuguese Teixeira family…
Confusión de Confusiones (Confusion of Confusions)
Philosopher:
I think I have fully grasped usque ad ultimas differentias the meaning of the Company, its shares, its principles, its reputation, its splendor, its initiation, its progress, its…
Responsum: On the Decoration of a Torah Ark
Question: I was asked by the leaders of the holy congregation of Prostějov: A small piece of paper on which was drawn the image of a menorah, with the verses beginning “May God be gracious to us” from…
Hymn to the Sabbath
Come, my beloved, to meet the bride, we’ll greet the Sabbath’s arrival.Observe and remember in a single utterance the singular Lord instructed us; the Lord is One, and One is His Name, for glory, for…
Vía de salvación (Path of Salvation)
Great God, author of death and life! for as much as Thy sovereign clemency shows itself so propitious toward me, that in the midst of the illness in which Thou hast placed me…
She‘are kedushah (Gates of Holiness)
You already know that concerning all matters of supernal attainment, one needs to be alone in his house so that others will not disturb his thought, and he himself needs to…