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.
Voyager’s Return
In the early 1940s, Adolph Gottlieb created a new style of art, known as “pictographs,” which are grid-like compositions or asymmetrical arrangements of boxes. His subject matter was drawn from…
Abraham
Abraham is a dark painting with an off-center black vertical stripe, measuring 6' 10 3/4" x 34 1/2". Its artist, Barnett Newman, said that viewing it was like coming face to face with a tall man. His…
Symphonie Vitale
Like most of Henry Valensi’s other “Symphony” paintings, Symphonie Vitale does not refer to a specific piece of music, but instead reflects the principles of Musicalism, the art movement founded by…
Double Metamorphosis III (Counterpoint and Sequence)
One of Yaacov Agam’s best-known works, Double Metamorphosis III is over eight feet tall and thirteen feet wide. The painting’s composition changes dramatically depending on the angle from which the…
People Pouring out of a Public Building into the Street
People Pouring out of a Public Building into the Street is one of Friedrich Friedländer’s best-known works. In the mid-nineteenth century, as part of a trend in European art that was moving away from…
We Must Decide!
After long deliberation, I concluded that we would be making a grave mistake if we did not participate in the upcoming kehilah electio…
Yiddish and Jewishness
The world is wicked. To us Jews—of course and of course. And if we are facing destruction, we must be ready, we must be armed against destruction. Fascism wants to exterminate us. It is a war on death…
A Peculiar Treasure
On Saturdays, and on unusually busy days when my father could not take the time to come home to the noon dinner, it became my duty to take his midday meal down to him, very carefully packed in a large…
The Role of Linguistic Folklore in Yiddish Literature
Linguistic folklore in literature is a component of realistic style. At first, new or renewed literature is usually realistic. The same reasons that introduce…
Tractate: The Onset of the Messiah
4. [ . . . ] The Gaon of Vilna writes [in his Even Shelemah] that the second chapter of Vayishla? is the chapter of the “footsteps of the Messiah.” When Jacob returned from his…
Jewish Folk Songs
At the beginning of the present century a whole constellation of Jewish composers and musicians studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory under the beneficial influence of Rimski…
Post-War Years 1945–1954
The months of which I am about to write are probably amongst the most painful in my whole life; I interrupted my work on the book for a long time trying to summon up the courage to embark on this…