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.
A Letter to the Readers of My Friends from Arnon Street
Often I receive letters from children who read my stories, and one question that is nearly always put to me in the letters is: “Did it really happen?” But, you see, I cannot always answer this…
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…
Torah Curtain
This Torah curtain was donated to the Altneuschul (Staranova Synagogue) in Prague in 1602 by Natan ben Issachar (called Karpel Zaks), and Hadassi bat Moses, who commissioned it, as attested to by its…
De Pinto Etrog Container
During the holiday of Sukkot, four plant species are used in rituals in the synagogue. One of these is the etrog (citron). While containers to protect the etrog later became more common, they were…
Portrait of Rachel da Costa with the Child Catharina Suasso
Here, Catherine da Costa, the first known female Jewish painter, has painted her daughter and granddaughter to resemble a Madonna and child. An unidentified woman leans over the infant, seemingly…
Book Acquisitions of the ‘Ets Haim Yeshiva for the Years 1718/9 and 1732/33
Established in 1616 as part of a yeshiva in Amsterdam, the Ets Ḥayim library continues to function to this day, making it the oldest operational Jewish library in the world. It moved to its current…
Portrait of David Nieto
This portrait of David Nieto was printed by James McArdell after a painting by David Esteves, London. David Nieto studied medicine in Padua and initially served as physician, preacher, and rabbinic…
Jewish woman in Cairo
This engraving depicting a Jewish woman in Cairo, Egypt, is from Cornelis de Bruyn’s travelogue, Reizen van Corn de Bruyn door de vermaardste deelen van Klein Asia, de eylanden Scio, Rhodus, Cyprus…
Untitled, 1996 (from The Soldiers Series)
This photograph of a bare-chested young man flexing his muscles in front of an army tent is one of the best-known images in Nes’s “Soldiers” series, an exploration of Israeli identity and masculinity…
Safed Exorcism
I was in the midst of a large group of people who were there, close to a hundred people, among them scholars and heads of communities. And two men, who knew adjurations and many things, approached the…
Sifte yeshenim (Lips of the Sleepers): On Citing Authors
I am astonished to see that for reading just the names of the holy books, one receives his reward, as if he had read and studied them all. If so, then one will not make much of an effort to study…