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.
Sermon: On David and Jeroboam
To understand this parable [of David and Jeroboam in b. Sanhedrin 102], we must say that Rabba bar bar Ḥana also describes people of two different kinds, whose deeds and way of life are different from…
Jewish Immigrants on the SS Patricia
Immigrants on a ship from Hamburg, Germany, arriving in New York, December 10, 1906. They were among the 15 million immigrants who came to the United States between 1900 and 1915. Most of the…
Self-Portrait with a Palette
Yehudah Pen painted this self-portrait shortly after opening the School of Drawing and Painting in Vitebsk. An early example of his self-portraiture, the painting is simple compared to later ones…
Le Cantique des Cantiques (The Song of Songs)
This erotic illustration by Joseph Chaikov was made for a lavish edition of the biblical Song of Songs published by the Yiddish Kultur-lige in Kiev in 1918–1919. The forms of the embracing couple here…
Revealment and Concealment
For it is clear that language with all its associations does not introduce us at all into the inner area, the essence of things, but that, on the contrary, language itself stands as a barrier before…
Banquet Menu
Menu for a banquet given in honor of District Grand Lodge No. 7, International Order of B’nai B’rith at the West End Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 11, 1886.
Rebbe Israel Ba‘al Shem Tov
The Birth of the Ba‘al Shem Tov
One of the greatest phenomena, running like a thread throughout the spiritual history of the Jewish people, is mysticism, a remnant of ancient mythology, which could…
Aquarium (Self-Portrait)
In this cubist-influenced self-portrait, the artist has painted herself reflected in a mirror, perhaps a symbol of a divided self. The upturned vessels on the table communicate a sense of upheaval…
From Non-Venetian Songs
When will the walls of prejudice collapse,
That split the fraternal human tribe into foes?
Will the flame of love, illuminating the earth,
Disperse the grim darkness of ignorance?
—Meanwhile the sun…
A History of the Jews in Russia
The idea of publishing a complete History of the Jews in Russia scarcely calls for extensive explanations or justifications. Russian Jewry, which quantitatively represents the most significant…
Tasks of the Polish Jews
The Jews in Poland still have a very demanding and holy task ahead of themselves. Or, to be more exact, they have a holy, lofty, most important and most responsible mission. Hasidism was born in…
The World of Emanation: Reflections on the Volozhin Yeshiva
The yearning to modernize the yeshiva and give it the appearance of a seminary grew considerably in the hearts of our scholars; but, regretfully, they used whatever filth…