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.
An Address on Women’s Rights
October 19, 1851
[E]ven here, in this far-famed land of freedom and of knowledge, under a republic that has inscribed on its banner the great truth that all men are created free and equal and are…
Yiddish Book of Customs
This page illustrating the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is from a Yiddish book of customs from Italy. By the sixteenth century, Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazic Jews were the largest groups of…
Illustration of an Armillary Sphere
This illustration of an armillary sphere is from a treatise on astronomy, Sefer mareh ha-ofanim (The Appearance of the Heavenly Beings), by Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor. The treatise was mostly a…
Benches, Royal Park, Montreal, Canada
Jaffee was best known for his photographs of people and cityscapes. In this photograph of empty benches, seemingly arranged for viewing an unknown event, he saw both an enigma and an abstract…
The Only Corner
The Only Corner illustrates Yaker’s ability to depict nature in its varied beauty and to express cultural meaning in his work. The same year he exhibited this painting, Yaker showed a series of works…
Consolaçāo às tribulações de Israel (Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel)
[ . . . ] The Portuguese king, eager to find some logical excuse to vex me, called for an investigation to see if the number…
Divre ha-yamim shel ha-apifyor Paulo revi‘i (The History of Pope Paul IV)
On the 4th of Sivan 5315 [June 3, 1555], after the death of Pope Marcellus [of] La Marche, whose name will be well remembered, though he reigned only twenty-three days, he gave great redemption to…
Sefer ḥerev pifiyot (The Double-Edged Sword)
Christian Priest:Good morning to the Jews.
Jew:A good morning and a good year to my lord.
Priest:Where are you going today to insult the gentiles?
Jew:I do not understand you.
Priest:Have not you Jews…
California Kosher: Contemporary and Traditional Jewish Cuisine
California Kosher reflects a merging of cuisines from everywhere in the world that Jews have lived, combined with the dazzling variety of fresh foods available in California—while still observing the…
An Overview: Torah—Written and Oral
When a human being builds a palace, he does not build it according to his own wisdom, but according to the wisdom of a craftsman. And the craftsman does not build according to his own wisdom, rather…
Figures in the Nisko Camp, Poland
As a prisoner in the Nisko labor camp in Poland in 1939 and 1940, Leo Haas painted portraits of SS men in exchange for extra food rations and art supplies. He also documented the daily lives of…