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.
David Oppenheim
David Oppenheim (1664–1736) was the chief rabbi of Prague. Born in Worms, he was the son of a communal leader and nephew of Samuel Oppenheim (1630–1703), financier and war contractor to Habsburg…
Sabbath Cooking Pot
Because observant Jews do not light fires or cook on the Sabbath, they prepare hot meals before the beginning of the Sabbath. In some communities, families brought their Sabbath stew (known as cholent…
Self-Portrait
This portrait of Jacob Judah Leon Templo, one of three that are known, is believed to be a self-portrait. In it, he clutches a coat of arms featuring a lion, which he himself designed, and holds a…
Nathan ben Samson of Meseritsch (scribe and artist), Psalms
This elaborately decorated title page is from a book of Psalms created by the scribe Nathan ben Samson in Gross Meseritsch, Moravia (today Velké Meziříčí, Czech Republic). On the left is Aaron in his…
Jewish Woman
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…
Flight into Egypt
The title of this painting, Flight into Egypt, refers to the story in the Christian Gospels in which Joseph and Mary flee with the infant Jesus to Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod. Rabin, born…
Untitled
Baron’s abstract collages were made from found materials, such as scraps of paper, string, and bits of fabric, which she sometimes found in junkyards. She considered them personal and political…
A Bat Mitzvah Party at the 20th Century Fox Movie Studio Commissary, West Los Angeles
This photograph of girls at a bat mitzvah was shot by Greenfield for a project about teenagers in Los Angeles. She was interested, she has said, “in how kids in Los Angeles seem to grow up quickly…
Akedah
Akedah is one of a series of photographs made by Winn while he was undergoing treatment for AIDS. In each photograph, a Band-Aid covers the place on his body from which blood was taken or an injection…
The South Tower
The award-winning photographer, Meyerowitz, was the only photographer officially allowed to enter Ground Zero in the days immediately following the collapse of the World Trade Towers in the terrorist…
Printer’s Note: Perush seder ‘avodat yom ha-kippurim (Commentary on the Order of the Service of Yom Kippur), by Moses Cordovero
Says the youth, Gedaliah, the Lord has granted me the merit to begin the work of heaven, today Wednesday, the 23rd of Tammuz, 5347 (July 29, 1587). I have fixed it for a fast and remembrance for ever…
Sifte yeshenim (Lips of the Sleepers): On the School in Amsterdam
Some time ago I came here to the holy congregation of Amsterdam and I visited the schools of the Sephardim a number of times. There I saw “giants [in scholarship]: tender children as small as…