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.
Hybrid Creature with Wings on Stone Relief
Hybrid creature with wings on stone relief, Carchemish, 9th century BCE. The creature has the body and head of a lion, an additional human head, and wings, paralleling some of the elements in Ezekiel…
Hybrid Creatures with Four Wings Supporting Deity in Persian Seal Impression
Hybrid creatures with four wings supporting deity in Persian seal impression, 6th or 5th century BCE. Biblical imagery and ancient Near Eastern iconography offer some parallels to the creatures…
Four Biblical Scenes
These four etchings were made by Rembrandt van Rijn for Menasseh Ben Israel’s book, Piedra Gloriosa (Glorious Stone), a messianic treatise. Clockwise from upper left, they illustrate the biblical…
The Wonder-Working Rabbi of Barcelona
During the weeks that Eleazar spent in pious contemplation in old Asia, the people of Barcelona took pains to persecute the Jews. It was they, once again, who made it hard for Spanish merchants to…
Sefirotic Diagram of the First Man
According to the colophon, Natan Hammerschlag’s Ilan de-adam kadmon (Sefirotic Diagram of the First Man) was copied from the writings of Ḥayim Vital, the most prominent disciple of Isaac Luria…
Monish
Life is like a river;we are fish.The water’s wholesome and freshand we would swim forever,but for a black figureon the riverbank.There Satan stands,in his handsa fishing rod,and catches fish.With a…
Explicasion de las armas de Lopes y Suaço (Explanation of the Arms of Lopez and Suasso)
I, Don Pedro Alberto de Launay Cau, gentleman of the Royal House of King Charles II, in charge of the heraldry and chronicles of his Spanish realms, of provincial arms, and, earlier, of his estates…
Entrées: A Collection of Recipes
[Title Page]And You Shall Cook and Eat (Deuteronomy 16:7)Livre de Cuisines [Cookbook]This book concerns all types of foods, appropriate for rich and poor, for holidays and other days. The composer of…
Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel: White Jews, Black Jews
Defining and establishing Mizrahim as Edot haMizrah served to prevent, until the early 1980s, any attempt to create a collective Mizrahi identity as an alternative to the general Israeli identity…
Todah w’simrah (Music of Thanksgiving)
For decades, my efforts have been directed at purifying the old modes [die alten Weisen]. Through [general] use and arbitrary treatment they have suffered tactless changes and distortions. I…
Saada the Wife of Abraham Benchimol and Préciada, One of Their Daughters
In 1832, after the French conquest of Algeria, French artist Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) traveled to North Africa, creating a series of paintings and drawings that exoticized scenes of daily life in…
Portrait of Emma Lazarus
The socially conscious writer Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) grew up in an established Sephardic family in New York. Lazarus’s eloquent essays, emotive poetry, and insightful translations—particularly of…