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.
John the Baptist
The young Jewish intellectuals of Barcinski’s generation were interested in pushing boundaries, including by employing Christian imagery, as Barcinski did in this portrait of John the Baptist. The…
A Jewish Policeman
The photomontages that Benor-Kalter began to make in the 1930s were a departure from his earlier straightforward style and allowed him to use photography to create visual metaphors. Here, a…
“The Spirit,” June 2, 1940
The Spirit was launched in 1940 as a special supplement for newspapers, designed to help them compete with the crime and superhero comic magazines, which were then wildly popular. It ran as a…
Luna
A month later, when a young man, about eighteen years old, Mulla Ovadia’s nephew, came to his father’s property and saw all that his uncle had done in it, he was told that his uncle had a wife in…
Chair with Red Matter
Chair with Red Matter was painted at a time when Henryk Berlewi was producing figurative art: portraits and still lives inspired by the work of seventeenth-century French artists. By 1957, he had…
“Superduperman,” Mad #4
Over its more than fifty-two years of publication, Mad Magazine skewered everyone from politicians to movie stars, with a particular dedication to rooting out hypocrisy. Here it spoofs its own genre…
“Chickensouperman” from L’il Abner
L’il Abner, set in the fictional town of Dogpatch in Kentucky, presented a stereotyped view of the U.S. South. But its trenchant satire targeted political and social issues, and popular culture. Here…
Sheep Readers, Le Nouvel Observateur, cover
The artist André François was particularly renowned for his cartoons, done initially for left-wing French newspapers. This cartoon of sheep clad in newsprint appeared on the cover of an issue of Le…
My Tiny, Ugly World
Never have I been content with my narrow, dark, gloomy world, and always am I aware of the contrast between the great, beautiful world and my tiny, ugly world. And always I say, “The place is too…
Jewish Women from Izmir Whitewashing
In the nineteenth century, especially in the era before photography, it was common for artists to travel to exotic or picturesque locations in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, and to produce…
Paper Cut—Shiviti Sign
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…
A Road in the Woods in Summer
Camille Pissarro was notable among his fellow impressionist painters in that he often put trees at the center of his compositions instead of using them primarily as a framing device. He also…