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.
Introduction to the Commentary on Numbers—Me’am Lo’ez by Isaac Magriso
The introduction to the first volume of this work, which you already have, explains that one must know what mitzvot God commanded us to perform, and what he obliged us to avoid, to find…
Toward a History of the Education of Russian Jews
In our first series of discussions, we explored the struggle between the government and the Jews, which was initiated by the former and ended with its triumph over the latter; in the second…
Moreh nevukhe ha-zeman (Guide for the Perplexed of Our Time)
According to the workings of the natural order there are three periods through which each primordial nation passes from the time it comes into being until it passes from the scene and perishes:
- The…
Rome and Jerusalem
What we have to do at present for the regeneration of the Jewish nation is, first, to keep alive the hope of the political rebirth of our people, and next, to reawaken that hope where it slumbers…
The Four Classes
The Yiddish language is our mother tongue. But is it the language of education, by means of which we can best understand each other? Does anyone even make the suggestion that…
Medal Commemorating the Repeal of the 1745 Expulsion of the Jews from Prague
This medal was issued in the Netherlands to commemorate the repeal of the 1745 expulsion of the Jewish community of Prague. Responding to appeals from foreign leaders, Maria Theresa (1717–1780), the…
The Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue, Entrance
Mikve Israel-Emanuel is a synagogue that served the Spanish Portuguese Jewish community in Curaçao (and continues to function today as a Reconstructionist congregation). It is the oldest surviving…
Portrait of Jacob Ries
Jacob Ries (1660–1751) of Prague first worked as a badchan (jester) for weddings. In 1710, he became court jester in Vienna under Charles VI. The artist of this portrait of Ries is not known. It…
Wedding Ceremony
Johann Christoph Georg Bodenschatz’s Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden, sonderlich derer in Deutschland (Religious Constitution of Today’s Jews, Especially Those in Germany), published in…
Interior of the Synagogue in Fürth
This print depicting a service in the synagogue in Fürth is from the beginning of the eighteenth century, a period of prosperity for the city’s Jewish community. There were between 350 and 400 Jewish…
Scroll of the Book of Esther
Moses ben Abraham Pescarol’s illuminated scroll of Esther, completed in Ferrara, constitutes one of the oldest and most unusual examples of illustrated manuscripts of this biblical book, which is…
Calendar Manual
Sifre ‘evronot—manuals for calculating the Jewish calendar, including leap years and holidays—were a popular genre of Ashkenazic illustrated manuscripts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries…