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.
Protest at the Funeral of Anti-Tsarist Revolutionaries
This postcard was printed by the Bund to commemorate the death of a worker, Kagan (Kohen), who was arrested in Mozir (today, Mazyr, Belarus) in the midst of one of the numerous protests against the…
Der pinkes (cover)
Der pinkes (The Book of Records, or The Annals) appropriated the term for the old-fashioned record book of a Jewish community or institution to name a very new phenomenon: the first “annual for the…
Hokey Pokey
Known for their slapstick sketches, the duo Weber and Fields (Joseph Weber, 1867–1942, and Lew Fields, b. Moses Schanfield, 1867–1942) performed musical shows that included singing, dancing, burlesque…
Ketubah Abstract
Nathan Marcus Adler is credited with this first English translation of the ketubah (bridal contract), which had been preserved in its traditional Aramaic version. In Adler's time, English-speaking…
Grininke beymelekh (cover)
Grininke beymelekh (Little Green Trees), no. 1 (Vilna: B. A. Kletzkin, 1914.) The title of this Yiddish children’s journal, the first of the genre to appear regularly, was drawn from the Yiddish poem…
Yingl-tsingl-khvat
I have a story here to tell
To all my children—you as well.
Hush, dear friends, be very still—
Hear my story, if you will.
There’s a land that’s quite remote,
Beyond the reach of train or boat;
Even…
Two Kuni Lemels
The cover of this Yiddish-language program is for a performance of Di tsvey Kuni Lemels (Two Kuni Lemels) at Goldfaden’s Yiddish Theater. The image features two dancing men in Hasidic attire. The play…
Photograph of Theda Bara
Theda Bara (1885–1955) was born Theodosia Burr Goodman in Cincinnati. After completing public high school, Goodman moved to New York to become an actress. In advertisements for the Fox Film Company’s…
Houdini’s Death-Defying Mystery
Poster of illusionist Harry Houdini’s escape act from a galvanized-iron milk can filled with water and secured by massive locks. Harry Houdini (1874–1926) was born Erik Weisz in Budapest and…
Komishe nakht (Comical Night)
Advertisement for an October 20, 1918, Yiddish production of Komishe nakht, a French comedy by José Sanz Pérez, adapted into Yiddish by M. Oyerbakh. It was performed by Salon Casa Suiza in Buenos…
Der arbayter fraynd (cover)
The Yiddish-language socialist weekly Der arbayter fraynd (The Worker’s Friend) was founded in London in 1885 by Morris Winchevsky (1856–1932), a political activist and poet originally from Russian…