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.
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. In some versions of the myth, Zeus grants Endymion…
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…
Torah Scroll from Kaifeng
Jews first settled in Kaifeng, the capital of Henan province in central China, before 1127. According to scholars, they had come from India or Persia, spoke Persian, and worked as cotton dyers and…
Kabbalistic Diagram
This page from a kabbalistic manuscript depicts the inner processes of the divine (the sefirot). Visualization plays an important part in kabbalah, and these diagrams provided a divine cartography…
The dedication page for Charles VI and his wife, Elizabeth Christina
This dedication page made by Meshulam Zimmel for Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI (1711–1740) and his wife, Elizabeth Christina (1691–1750), whose portraits appear on the page, presents three versions of…
Astrolabe
This astrolabe, an astronomical instrument, from the sixteenth century is inscribed in Hebrew characters.
Letter to Shabbetai Tzvi
Indeed, in order to do the will of my Father who is in heaven, I came in fear, trembling and trepidation, with a bow of my head and a prostration of my body, “spreading out my arms and my legs” [b…
Phlebotomy knife
This illustration of a phlebotomy knife appears in an eighteenth-century Judeo-Arabic medical manuscript. Bloodletting, thought to balance the humors of the body, was an accepted medical treatment at…
Israelite Chronology
2000–1200 BCE
Traditional Dates of Patriarchs and Sojourn in Egypt
1200 BCE
Settlement in Canaan
1200–1025 BCE
Chieftains (“Judges”) and Tribal Rule
1025–928 BCE
United Monarchy of Israel…