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.
Shevaḥ nashim (In Praise of Women)
I have realized, and my attention has been drawn to the fact that many people say that the salvation of women is not on the same level as that of men, for their [women’s] knowledge is limited. They…
Jar with Governor of the City Inscription
To/of the governor of the city. Translated by Shmuel Aḥituv, Ze’ev Meshel, and Esther Eshel.
Ma’amar ‘olam katan (Treatise on the Microcosm)
Let the entire soul praise the Lord (Psalms 150:6) concerning the four quarters of the component of the souls that approach the Lord; and they are in detail as follows: the greatest, which…
The Diaspora: Construction of Jewish History
This is the eighteen-hundred-year era of the diaspora, of unprecedented suffering, of uninterrupted martyrdom without parallel in world history. But it is also a period of spiritual alertness, of…
Confirmation Manual
The compiler of this Manual, after many years of experience in the ministry, and frequent occasions of conferring the rite of Confirmation on his pupils, desires to place before his…
Map of the Temple in Jerusalem
This map of the Temple in Jerusalem made in Safed by a Jewish scribe comes from an example of a “pilgrimage scroll,” also known as an “itinerary,” because they included instructions for visiting holy…
Daughters of Francisco Lopes Suasso
Don Francisco (Abraham Israel) Lopes Suasso (ca. 1657–1710), a prominent financier of Portuguese Jewish heritage, had ten children with his second wife, Leonora (Rachel) da Costa (1669–1749). In this…
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…