Primary Sources
Bring the histories, cultures, and perspectives of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews into your teaching. Explore lesson plans, primary sources, curricula, cultural guides, and professional development opportunities curated by JIMENA for educators in Jewish and general educational settings. Whether preparing a single lesson or shaping a broader curriculum, these resources help you deepen students’ understanding of Jewish life, challenge stereotypes and antisemitism, and make Sephardic and Mizrahi experiences an integral part of how Jewish history and identity are taught. (test)
JIMENA Oral History Collection
Video testimonies from Jews born in Morocco, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Iran and across the region, telling in their own words about home, departure and rebuilding their lives.
Voices from the Archive: Iraqi Jewish Life in Documents
Photographs, school records, petitions and citizenship papers from the Iraqi Jewish Archive, made searchable with English translations, including the 1951 register of Baghdadi Jews whose Iraqi nationality was withdrawn.
The Cairo Genizah
Letters, contracts, poems and everyday records from a thousand years of Jewish life in Egypt and the Mediterranean, digitized by Cambridge University Library.
Diarna: Jewish Sites of the Middle East and North Africa
A digital museum that maps and photographs synagogues, schools, cemeteries and neighborhoods across the region, many of them no longer reachable, alongside interviews with former residents.
UCLA Sephardic Archive Initiative
UCLA’s digital exhibit on a century of Sephardic and Mizrahi life in Los Angeles, from Ottoman and Moroccan immigrants to Iranian Jewish families.
The Sephardic Studies Digital Collection
Digitized Ladino books, letters, photographs, recordings, and oral histories from the Ottoman Sephardic world and its immigrant communities, preserved by the University of Washington.
Gharamophone
A digital archive of early 20th century records by Jewish musicians from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, curated by McGill historian Christopher Silver.
JDC Archives
Photographs, letters, reports, films and a names database from more than a century of the Joint Distribution Committee’s rescue and relief work, including its aid to Jewish communities in Morocco, Iran, Yemen and across the region.
National Library of Israel: Primary Sources for Educators
Manuscripts, photographs, posters and maps from the National Library of Israel, with ready-to-use lessons and source sheets.
Collect a Family Story
Students become historians by interviewing a relative or community member and adding a new voice to the record.