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.
Tel Aviv
This building, photographed by Liselotte Grschebina, is one of approximately four thousand Bauhaus-style buildings constructed in Tel Aviv, the most of any city in the world. The Nazi Party’s rise to…
Nahal Oz
Nahal Oz, located in the Negev close to the border of the Gaza strip, was founded in 1951 as Israel’s first Nahal settlement. These were established by soldiers to provide a first line of defense…
A Messenger’s Coming to You Today
A messenger’s coming to you today.
I’m the one who sent him.
He’s bringing a bag of gifts.
Don’t bolt the door on him.
He’s bringing a bag of gifts.
I collected and watched them.
He’ll lay them at…
Torah Ark Curtain
Each of the four-sided shapes on Siona Shimshi’s Torah ark curtain represents a Jewish holiday, except for the one at left (second from top) with an image of hands arranged for a priestly blessing…
The Jew
Moses, from whose loins I sprung,
Lit by a lamp in his blood
Ten immutable rules, a moon
For mutable lampless men.
The blonde, the bronze, the ruddy,
With the same heaving blood,
Keep tide to the…
A Report on the Community of Isfahan
In response to questions put by the correspondent of the journal Der Israelit of Mayence to the (Chief) Rabbi of the Jewish community of Isfahan concerning the situation of that community, the (Chief…
Laying the Pipes of the National Water Carrier from the Sea of Galilee to the Negev
This photograph by Moshe Gross is very much in the tradition of Zionist and Israeli iconography, which favored images stressing the heroic aspects of Zionism and the “new Jews” who were building…
Inventory of Household Goods of Nathan Levy
The inventory of the goods belonging to Philadelphia Jewish merchant Nathan Levy includes religious books in Judeo-Spanish, as well as numerous secular classical books and musical instruments
Wedding Sofa
This Biedermeier-style sofa from Danzig, with birch veneer over pine, may have been commissioned on the occasion of a marriage. The oval on the seat back contains an image of clasped hands, and the…
Faithful and Free: Collected Speeches and Lectures about Jews and Judaism
One may consider this work a sort of memorial book that captures the history of the Jews and Judaism in our century. It does not narrate stories but reports; it presents personages about whom I was…
Postage Stamp
When the company owned by Jacob Abraham Jesurun (1806–1875) obtained a contract for mail delivery within the Caribbean in 1867, it had its own stamps printed featuring the firm’s initials, J. A. J. &…
Orpheus: A History of Religions
Why does the name of Orpheus, “the first of the world’s singers,” as Lefranc de Pompignan called him, appear on the title-page of this volume? Because he was not merely “the first singer,”…