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.
How We Found the Manuscripts of the Martyred Writers
A people that forgets its dead is condemned to decay—Jules Guesde
We will never forget our dead. They still live among us and in our thoughts.
For that reason, immediately after the Liberation, we…
A Memorial and a Witness
Pinkes Varshe is a memorial erected by the immigrants from Warsaw in Argentina in honor of those generations of Warsaw Jews who, with their lives and struggles, with their heroism and spirituality…
Ziprah Nunez’s Account of the Family Escape
On page 101, reference is made to the history of the Jews in this State. Since that part of the work was printed, M. M. Noah, Esquire, of New-York, has kindly favoured us with the following additional…
On Hearing She Had Been Praised in the Journals
My soul sighs, fate brings only trouble.
My spirit was lifted, and I grew bold.
I heard a voice: ‘Your poem is gold.
Who has learned to sing like you, Rachel?’
My spirit in turn replies: I’ve lost…
An Address on Women’s Rights
October 19, 1851
[E]ven here, in this far-famed land of freedom and of knowledge, under a republic that has inscribed on its banner the great truth that all men are created free and equal and are…
Jewish Women from Adrianople (Edirne)
These depictions of Jewish women from Adrianople (present day Edirne, Turkey) is from a travelogue by French geographer Nicolas Nicolay, who is believed to have done his own illustrations. Considered…
Marriage Ceremony
This illustration depicting a Jewish wedding taking place under a huppah (wedding canopy) near a synagogue appeared in the book Jüdisches Ceremoniel (Jewish Ceremonial Customs), by Paul Christian…
Sefirotic Tree
Kabbalist Elijah Menaḥem ben Abba Mari Ḥalfan constructed this diagram, now stained and torn, with the assistance of his tutor Abraham Sarfati. It depicts the sefirotic system and includes Ḥalfan’s…
A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue
A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue was the first Hebrew-language manual printed in North America. Its author Judah Monis, knowing that all undergraduates at Harvard University were required to learn…
Bronze Physician’s Mortar
This bronze physician’s mortar from Verona, Italy, is decorated with a seven-branched candelabrum, flanked by the Hebrew letters mem and resh, likely the initials for the Hebrew term for “physician’s…
Sabbath
Gurvich began increasingly to focus his work on his Jewish heritage after his first trip to Israel in 1955. His paintings depict Jewish life and culture in dreamlike imaginary worlds, in a style and…
Fish Bargain, NYC
Aron’s photographs of Jewish communities portray their vibrancy but also document aspects of Jewish cultural, religious, and economic life that are changing and/or in danger of vanishing altogether…