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.
Horse Figurine
Numerous figurines of horses, sometimes including a rider, have been found. Most have traces of paint; it is likely that they were all originally painted. The paint sometimes depicts the horse’s…
Seal of Hamiohel Daughter of Menahem, with Fish
From Jerusalem, this seal is made of bone. The fish image, a motif known only from Hebrew seals, suggests plenty and fertility (cf. Genesis 48:16) and may also allude to the life-giving nature of…
Berlin, Jerusalem and the Moon
Edie:You got it. I can’t be a woman and I can’t be a Jew. And I can’t be either, because I can’t be both. So, you know what I’m gonna be? I am gonna be nothing.Else:Oh, I see, you call all of that…
Small Ceramic Altar from Hazor
This square altar from Hazor is 12 inches (30 cm) high. The offering surface is recessed, and the upper corners have horns that would have held the offering in place.
Herod
Miriam, Aristobolus and Dina.
Miriam:Mother!
Enter Alexandra, Miriam’s mother.
Alex:Your shouting will wake the dead. A little refinement, Miriam, you’re no longer a little girl.
Miriam:It…
Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number
The cell is narrow. When I stand at its center, facing the steel door, I can’t extend my arms. But it is long, and when I lie down, I can stretch out my entire body. A stroke of luck, for in the cell…
Split at the Root
In a long poem written in 1960, when I was thirty-one years old, I described myself as “Split at the root, neither Gentile nor Jew, / Yankee nor Rebel.” I was still trying to have it both ways: to be…
An Indictment of Judah and Hope for Its Future
The prophecies of Isaiah son of Amoz, who prophesied concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth,
For…
God Speaks to Cyrus
Thus said the Lord to Cyrus, His anointed one— Whose right hand He has grasped, Treading down nations before him, [ . . . ]. I am the Lord and there is none else;Beside Me, there is no god.I engird…
The Birthday Party
It was taken on Saturday, March 20, 1937, in the town of Swienciany, which lies on the Polish border with Lithuania approximately 50 miles northeast of Vilna. Nine girls and two boys, together with…
On Drought and Military Defeat
The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah concerning the droughts.
Judah is in mourning,
Her settlements languish.
Men are bowed to the ground,
And the outcry of Jerusalem rises.
The…