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.
God’s Paintbrush
Written by a rabbi, God's Paintbrush carries a message that is not unique to Judaism but rather is intended to appeal to children of a variety of faiths and backgrounds. The book was popular among…
A Book of Hebrew Letters
Pages from Mark Podwal’s A Book of Hebrew Letters, an exploration of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet through drawings and words representing each letter.
Florida Family Portrait
For her book Florida Family Portrait, Gelles photographed her family in the same pose over twenty years during trips to visit her parents in Florida. A comment on family, growth, aging, death, and the…
Tefillin (Triptych)
Laurence’s Tefillin questions both western art and patriarchal aspects of Judaism. The triptych portrays parts of women’s naked bodies, bound in the leather straps of tefillin, the small black leather…
Kabbalistic Diagram and Calendar
These pages come from the same manuscript of a midrashic commentary. The first image depicts the inner processes of the divine emanations (the sefirot). Visualization plays an important part in…
Faces decorating a siddur
These are marginal illustrations found in a manuscript siddur from Italy according to the Romaniote rite, with prayers focused on marriage and birth rituals and customs, as well as the pidyon ha-ben…
Mūsā nāma (The Book of Moses)
Mūsā nāmā (The Book of Moses) is a retelling of the biblical story of Moses, composed in Judeo-Persian verse by the poet Mowlānā Shāhīn-i Shīrāzī. In this scene, Phinehas (bottom right) surprises the…
Megilat Mitsrayim (The Scroll of Egypt)
After these things, Ahmed Shaitan desired of the Jews a hundred and fifty thousand great gold pieces, and he also said, If ye bring them not quickly, I shall kill you with the sword. And when the Jews…
Silent Prayer, Synagogue of Amsterdam, “The Amidah”
This painting of a service at the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam is similar to a painting for which Jacques-Émile-Edouard Brandon received a medal at the Paris Salon of 1867. Both are views of the…
Purim Page (Mi-she-nikhnas adar)
This lithograph of a micrographic drawing, believed to be from Poland, reproduces the text of the scroll of Esther in its entirety, as well as prayers and poems for the holiday of Purim. In the center…
Memories from My Life
From Kiev I took a wagon heading for Zhitomir. Few of my readers will still remember the long coach wagons in which the past generation traveled before the railroads…
Let Us Seek and Investigate
I have always regretted one thing. When I ponder the Hebrew literature of all periods I ask myself: Why is it that our forefathers, who spent so much time on the study of matters of religion and law…