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.
Dancers Resting
The female figure, especially dancers, were a favorite subject for Moses Soyer. He was especially inspired by Edgar Degas and Honoré Daumier, whose paintings he had the opportunity to examine…
Portrait of Leo Lehmann
Leo Lehmann (1782–1859) was the father of the popular portrait artist Rudolf Lehmann. Here he depicts his father, a painter and printmaker (and his son’s first art teacher) at work, with the tools of…
Ghetto and Emancipation
The history of the Jews in the last century and a half has turned about one central fact: that of Emancipation. But what has Emancipation really meant to the Jew? The generally accepted view has it…
In Praise of the Hebraists in America
Like a sparse string of lights, scattered but connected
belonging to a strange and darkly snowy train station
that suddenly pops up among the winter fields,
forgotten somewhere between New York and…
A Cityful of Jews
The man was a ferment of intelligence and emotion. He could not grow accustomed to the conventional life of the common herd. He thought differently from all the others and disliked collective thinking…
How We Found the Manuscripts of the Martyred Writers
A people that forgets its dead is condemned to decay—Jules Guesde
We will never forget our dead. They still live among us and in our thoughts.
For that reason, immediately after the Liberation, we…
A Memorial and a Witness
Pinkes Varshe is a memorial erected by the immigrants from Warsaw in Argentina in honor of those generations of Warsaw Jews who, with their lives and struggles, with their heroism and spirituality…
Ziprah Nunez’s Account of the Family Escape
On page 101, reference is made to the history of the Jews in this State. Since that part of the work was printed, M. M. Noah, Esquire, of New-York, has kindly favoured us with the following additional…
On Hearing She Had Been Praised in the Journals
My soul sighs, fate brings only trouble.
My spirit was lifted, and I grew bold.
I heard a voice: ‘Your poem is gold.
Who has learned to sing like you, Rachel?’
My spirit in turn replies: I’ve lost…
The Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth
Thus there are two kinds of truths, equally ascertained, and therefore equally admissible; the one proceeding from intellect and called rational truth, the other formed in the heart, and called moral…
Map of the Land of Israel
This hand-drawn map of Hebron, Israel, is from an autograph manuscript of Melekhet Shelomoh (The Work of Solomon), Solomon Adeni’s commentary on the Mishnah.
Torah Wrapper, Rome
According to the Hebrew inscription, this silk velvet, gilt silver-thread embroidery and silk brocade Torah wrapper was donated in 1727 or 1728 to the Scola Castigliana (a synagogue founded by Jews of…