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.
Jew from Poland
Lerski’s portrait of a young Polish Jewish immigrant to Palestine is in his distinctive, expressionist style. Using mirrors and reflectors to emphasize the transformative powers of light, Lerski liked…
Portrait of Fanny von Arnstein
Fanny von Arnstein (née Itzig; 1758–1818) was born into a prominent Jewish banking family in Berlin and married a leading Viennese financier. She entertained many luminaries at her famous salon. Having…
A Jewish Wedding in South Russia
Of all festivities celebrated among the Jews in southern Russia, the wedding ceremony has suffered the greatest loss of characteristic elements of folk tradition. Even among the poorest, weddings are…
For the Sixtieth Jubilee of the Poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik
Yeshurun sings, when in him it sees a delicate beauty in the bloom of her youth
playing the lyre in her bosom’s embrace, her song gladdening the sorrowful heart.
A charming doe [even] without kohl…
Kedushat Yom Tov (The Sanctity of Yom Tov)
Reuben spoke in the marketplace with two men, inviting them to come to his house for the purpose of giving them the monies accrued from a business partnership, and they entered his house…
Hut ha-meshulash (Threefold Cord)
The Hasid praises the Almighty on the right hand, and the unbeliever tosses away and truncates the principles of faith on the left, while the Torah scholar, standing in the center, maintains silence…
Silliness and Sanctimony
Yetkhen:And how crude he was with me! He wants to arrange with Papa to marry me! How do you like that? I’d like to meet the man who’ll force me to marry someone! No! No father can do that—I have…
Letter Addressed to the Conference of Constantinople in Favor of the Jews of the Orient
Paris, December 1876
To Mr. President and Members of the Conference of Constantinople
Sirs,
You were nominated to discuss the interests of a great number of people in the Orient, and to accomplish a…
La Reine de Chypre
La reine de Chypre (The Queen of Cyprus) is a grand opera in five acts, first performed in Paris in 1841. It is regarded as one of the greatest works of the composer Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie…
Celebratory Processional in Prague to Honor Joseph II
A month after the birth of future Emperor Joseph II (March 13, 1741), the Jews of Prague held a festive procession in honor of the happy event. The procession, which was planned and led by the…
Synagogue Judaica
This is the frontispiece of a 1661 edition of Synagoga Judaica, a study of the customs and culture of German Jewry by Christian Hebraist, and polemical critic of Judaism, Johannes Buxtorf the Elder…