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.
Notes of a Jew
However modestly my parents lived in the country, however little I was used to luxury and every comfort, at least at home I was used to cleanliness and order…
Rabbinical Anthology
Proverbs are the wisdom of the people, the fruit of common sense, and in particular, are distilled from general experience. They are to the moral…
The Bible View of Slavery
A Civil War–era Jewish leader defends the institution of slavery in the South based on his reading of the Hebrew Bible.
Yudl and Yehudis
Yehudis:
Yidele—a question. Hear me out.
And please don’t interrupt and start to shout.
Yidele:
I’m not exactly in the mood, my dear,
But go ahead and…
Letter Addressed to the Conference of Constantinople in Favor of the Jews of the Orient
Paris, December 1876
To Mr. President and Members of the Conference of Constantinople
Sirs,
You were nominated to discuss the interests of a great number of people in the Orient, and to accomplish a…
The Flower
Where everyone travels, in the middle of the road,
there is a wonderful flower.
It’s been lying there and rotting for several days now.
The wind blows it around,
and it cries out and weeps a great…
Torah Curtain from Prague
This Torah ark curtain was donated to a synagogue in Prague by Leib ben Hezekiah Tausk Nagelstock and his wife Reykhl, daughter of Lemel Lichtenstadt. The composition of the curtain is stylized…
Kiddush Cup from a Synagogue in Lublin
Kiddush cups are used for the ritual blessing over wine. This one, partially made of gold, was crafted in Nuremberg, Germany, and was used in a synagogue in Lublin, Poland. The engraved plant and…
Torah Curtain
This very early Torah ark curtain from Pesaro was embroidered by Rachel Olivetti and donated to the synagogue in honor of her marriage to Judah Montefiore. The Hebrew text is a poem celebrating and…
Emblem of the Jewish Butchers’ Guild
The merchants’ and artisans’ guilds introduced into Eastern Europe beginning in the thirteenth century by German immigrants resembled those in Western Europe in their exclusion of Jews. Jews therefore…
Scroll of the Book of Esther
Like Torah scrolls, the scroll of the biblical book of Esther, read ritually in the synagogue on the holiday of Purim, must be completely unadorned. However, in the sixteenth century, for reasons…
Klausen Book of Psalms
According to the colophon, the scribe in Prague who produced the Klausen Book of Psalms, Shabbetai Sheftel ben Zalman Auerbach (d. 1738), was descended from a family expelled from Vienna in 1669/70…