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.
Mizraḥ Tablet Lithograph
This mizraḥ (an ornamental wall plaque used to indicate the direction of Jerusalem) includes a map of the land of Israel surrounded by sacred sites and vistas. These elaborate mizraḥ sheets were often…
Elijah’s Chair
Traditionally, the prophet Elijah is believed to be present at all Jewish circumcision ceremonies, and a chair is reserved for him. It serves as the seat of the godfather, who holds the baby boy…
David Ben-Gurion Standing on His Head (Sharon Hotel Beach, Herzliya)
Paul Goldman was notable for keeping his distance from his subjects, perhaps as a show of respect. He photographed many of Israel’s early leaders. Here, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister…
Carob Tree Boulevard
Ori Reisman painted with a spatula, reducing his subjects to large blocks of vibrant color with little or no detail, which could be experienced as both figurative and abstract. During his lifetime he…
Diary Entry: On Circumcision
24 December. Sunday. [ . . . ]
This morning my nephew’s circumcision. A short, bow-legged man, Austerlitz, who already has 2,800 circumcisions behind him, deftly executed the affair. The oper is…
Jews in China
We shall now sum up the different opinions as regards the arrival of the Jews on Chinese soil.The missionaries reported that the Jews believe, according to a tradition, that their ancestors came to…
The Grand Sanhedrin
Édouard Moyse’s painting portrays the Grand Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court assembled by Napoleon in 1807 to ratify the answers of an assembly of Jewish communal leaders to twelve questions submitted…
Memorial to a Shtetl
Far, far from the paved roads and broad ways, far, far from the ordinary shtetls, stood isolated villages that had a different sky over them and a different sun.
The God of heaven in His mercy made…
Herut: On Youth and Religion
“God’s writing engraved on the
tablets”—read not harut (engraved)
but herut (freedom).
—Sayings of the Fathers VI, 2
Among all the problems of present-day Jewish life, that of youth’s attitude…
On the Issues of the Economic Boycott of Germany
[ . . . ] In regard to the boycott [of German goods], in my view, the rabbis ought to have stood aloof, at a distance, and not to have involved themselves with this at all, as this is an issue…
Midrashim of Redemption
And I will wait upon the Lord,
who hides His face from the house of Jacob,
and I will look for Him. (Isaiah 8:16)
I endeavored to place before the educated reader all the literature of redemption…
Maḥzor
On this illustrated page from a prayer book, written in an Ashkenazic hand, the scribe Simeon ben Naphtali has added, to the prayers said at a wedding, an image of the prophet Elijah (on the left)…