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.
Summer Evening, Via di Monserrato, Rome
Summer Evening is one of a series of photographs William Klein took in Rome in 1956 when he was there to serve as an assistant on a movie directed by Federico Fellini. Shooting was delayed, so the…
Sheep Readers, Le Nouvel Observateur, cover
The artist André François was particularly renowned for his cartoons, done initially for left-wing French newspapers. This cartoon of sheep clad in newsprint appeared on the cover of an issue of Le…
Jewish Women from Izmir Whitewashing
In the nineteenth century, especially in the era before photography, it was common for artists to travel to exotic or picturesque locations in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, and to produce…
L’Arche, Dictionary of French Judaism, “Abraham”
The Jewish man is first and foremost the Hebrew man, and the Jewish man, since he is Hebrew, is the man of origins. Origins of what? Origins of what all of us are, origins of Western as well as…
Boil Me No Melting Pots, Dream Me No Dreams
When the fathers of Confederation built this country in 1867, there was universal agreement among all Canadians, English- and French-speaking, that there was no place for the American Dream on the…
The Frankfort Lehrhaus
In the treatise Zeit ist’s [Franz] Rosenzweig outlined a detailed and imposing plan of an Academy for the Science of Judaism, the members of which would be both scholars and teachers. As scholars…
Courtesy, or Rules of Comportment
As I write these words it occurs to me that, since it is the woman who runs the household, she must have wide knowledge and be a good manager. For many centuries our nation ignored women’s education…
Judaism and Its History
There are facts of such an overwhelming power that even the most stubborn opinion must yield to them. Such a fact is the origin of Judaism in the midst of rude surroundings, like a vigorous…
A Few Words Concerning Literary Criticism
Admittedly, it is true that all our hearts will be filled with feelings of astonishment when we recall the giant steps that the new generation has taken upon the peaks of the sciences and forms of…
Prayer book
This siddur from Greece contains the prayers of the Romaniote (Greek-speaking Jewish) community of the eastern Mediterranean. It is open at a piyyut (liturgical poem) called “God’s Beloved Daughter,”…
Jewish Clothing from Fürth
In 1705, the Nuremberg artist, Johannes Alexander Böner, published a slim volume about Fürth, Germany, containing several copper-engravings dealing with the life of Jews in the city. This print…
Silver circumcision plate
This silver plate from Padua, Italy, was made for use in the brit milah, the circumcision ritual celebrated when a baby boy is eight days old. In this detailed depiction of the ritual, the baby seems…