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.
A Dictionary of Political Terms
Politishes verter-bukh (A Dictionary of Political Terms) is an anonymous work billed as “an interpretation of the strange words that are used in Yiddish newspapers, journals, and political and…
The Wanderings of the Little Blue Butterfly in Fairyland
The little blue butterfly was born in the red bell of a morning glory. She had been a caterpillar before that and had lived for a while in a cocoon, but she could remember nothing about it.
She peeped…
Portrait of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Tsemakh Tsedek)
Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (1789–1866), the third rebbe of Chabad Hasidism, was a preeminent religious figure of nineteenth-century East European Jewry. The portrait is an early example of Boris…
Grininke beymelekh (cover)
Grininke beymelekh (Little Green Trees), no. 1 (Vilna: B. A. Kletzkin, 1914.) The title of this Yiddish children’s journal, the first of the genre to appear regularly, was drawn from the Yiddish poem…
Shloyme ha-melekh (King Solomon)
An illustration by El Lissitzky from Chaim Nahman Bialik’s Shloyme ha-melekh (King Solomon), from an issue of the Hebrew journal Shtilim (Saplings) that was printed in 1917 in Moscow, two days before…
Yingl-tsingl-khvat
I have a story here to tell
To all my children—you as well.
Hush, dear friends, be very still—
Hear my story, if you will.
There’s a land that’s quite remote,
Beyond the reach of train or boat;
Even…
Ornamental Artillery Shell Casing
The soldier-artist Raphael Avraham Shalem used found objects, such as shell cases, as the material for his artworks. On this shell casing, he engraved a view of Rachel’s Tomb, a site revered by Jews…
The Moon and Sleep
Simeon Solomon’s The Moon and Sleep was inspired by the Greek story of Endymion, a beautiful youth beloved of Selene, the goddess of the moon. Zeus granted Endymion ageless immortality, subjecting…
The Essence of Baseball Explained for Non-Sportsmen
Illustration of a baseball diamond in a short primer on the game of baseball published in the summer of 1909 in the Yiddish-daily Forverts (Forward). Some of the words in the picture are…
Paul Street Boys
The grund . . . You handsome and robust country lads of the wide-open spaces, who need only step outside your doors to be close to limitless meadows, under a marvelous vast canopy of blue; you whose…
Porke no? (Can a Sephardic-Ashkenazic Romance Survive? A Russian Jewish Woman in New York Seeks Advice)
To the editor of La Bos del Pueblo:
I am a Jewish girl born in Russia who came to America eight years ago. Although I am not remarkably well-educated, I have always wanted to marry a well-educated boy…
Le Las (The Weary)
Jules Adler’s many paintings depicting the everyday lives of the working-class in Paris and labor strikes earned him the nickname “the painter of the humble.” Les Las (The Weary) was inspired by a…