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.
Budapest Ghetto
Yevgeny Khaldei took this photograph of a man and a woman on or near the site of the Jewish ghetto in Budapest in January 1945 soon after it was liberated by the Red Army. They wear the yellow star…
Nocturne (Death of a Soldier)
Nocturne was painted after Marcel Janco and his family moved to Palestine. Showing two men ministering to a mortally wounded soldier, surrounded by weeping, lamenting figures, the painting creates a…
My Own
My lovely lady is like flights of scent—
the other day she opened like a flower—
She is beautiful as angels in the spring—
the other night her sun warmed my heart—
My lady’s lips are the single…
Speak to Us in Jewish
And after all the argumentation and consideration
The Jew will arise and speak to us:
“In our blessed country all voices of the Torah are at the doorway
And all lessons will captivate the hearts of…
Hebrew Ballads
The little sons of Abraham took shells
And floated boats made out of mother-pearl;
Then Isaac leaned in fear on Ishmael.
And mournfully sang the two black swans
Quite gloomy notes…
The Sum of Suffering
The sum of suffering is greater
Than the sum of happiness.
That’s what a philosopher said
Long ago, years and years.
The waves of suffering wash away
Happiness’s tiny isle.
The bridge of suffering…
The Promised Land
I was born, I have lived, and I have been made over. Is it not time to write my life’s story? I am just as much out of the way as if I were dead, for I am absolutely other than the person whose story…
The House on Henry Street
A sick woman in a squalid rear tenement, so wretched and so pitiful that, in all the years since, I have not seen anything more appealing, determined me, within half an hour, to live on the East…
Portrait of Giacomo Meyerbeer as a Boy
A pathbreaking composer, Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864) surprised and delighted generations of opera fans in Europe and around the world. To the staid formula of live performances, he added sound…
Amulet for Bitoul Ada
This unusual heart-shaped amulet from Morocco is inscribed with the words “God Almighty,” followed by the priestly blessing (Numbers 6:24–26) and an individualized text: “May God give him life and…
Essay on the History of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire
It was in the early eighteenth century (1700–1706) when some Ottoman Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin left Turkey to settle in Vienna. A chronicle has preserved for us the names of the three…
Table of Jewish Assimilation in “The Jews of Today”
The Four Sections of Jewry Jewish AssimilationNumber. Typical Representatives.Economic Condition.Religious Outlook.EducationBirth- rate per 1,000 souls.Percentage of Mixed Marriages.Conversions…