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.
Chutzpah
My experience with discrimination—especially at the hands of the Paul, Weiss firm over my Sabbath observance—caused me an embarrassing moment during my interview for the Supreme Court clerkship I did…
Leaving the Fold: Intermarriage
The Torah views the defection of one single Jewish soul from Judaism as the ultimate tragedy, for is not “one solitary Jewish life an entire world”? And an intermarriage is nothing…
A Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism
We affirm the reality and oneness of God, even as we may differ in our understanding of the Divine presence.
We affirm that the Jewish people is bound to God by an eternal בְּרִית (b’rit), covenant…
Leonard Bernstein
Al Hirschfeld was most famous for his caricatures of actors, musicians, and other figures from the arts and public life. He himself preferred to be known as a “characterist.” After the birth of his…
Ewer and Basin
This ewer and basin from Turkey were used to wash hands ritually during the Passover seder. Owned by the Benguiat family, a large and prominent Sephardic family in the Ottoman Empire, the objects…
The Russian Jew in the United States: Sweatshops in Philadelphia
[ . . . ] We enter a sweatshop on Lombard, Bainbridge, Monroe or South Fourth Street. It may be on one of several floors in which similar work…
“L’aigle déplumé! . . .” (The Bald Eagle!)
This caricature of Napoleon III (1808–1873), the last monarch of France, was made after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), when Napoleon was being held in captivity in…
Drawings Published in Harper’s
An illustration for the monthly magazine Harper’s, The Thirty-Second Indiana Regiment (Colonel Willich) Building Pontoons in Kentucky was likely drawn by Henry Mosler during the Civil War. Engravings…
The Maccabees
Today it is possible for us to observe the process of Hellenization in individual features only. But these features are sufficiently significant to enable…
The Essence of Judaism (Second Edition)
During the thousands of years of its history, Judaism has learned and experienced a good deal. In its people the commanding urge to think further, to struggle with ideas, has…
The Song of the Dying: To the History of Jewish Creativity under the Nazi Occupation
Among the illegal publications that appeared in Poland during the Nazi occupation, one can find a small anthology of poems entitled Z otchlani, from the Abyss. This modest volume, published by the…
Havurat Shalom: Draft of a Covenant
We join together in this covenant out of a sense of divine mission, out of a search for the realization of the sacred in our lives as individuals and as brothers and sisters in a community. Though…