1930
Gábor Kinszki at Róna Street 12. 1930.
Budapest, Hungary
Contributed by Dokuforte and Judit Kinszki.
Photo: Imre Kinszki.
Opening the Shoebox: How Dokuforte Preserves the Visual Story of Jewish Life
Step into Jewish history with this expansive photo archive spotlighting everyday Jewish life around the world.
By Noa Schiller - Founder & CEO, Dokuforte | September 14, 2026
For Noa Schiller, old photographs don’t just capture a split-second in time — they offer us a granular view of how our relatives, ancestors, and others experienced their day-to-day reality. That’s why she founded Dokuforte, a crowd-sourced digital archive that captures the lived history of Jews in Israel and around the world through everyday moments.
In this reflection, Schiller describes what inspired her to create it, how it connects generations, and the role one JDC initiative played in helping her share her passion with others.
It often starts with a box tucked away on a shelf, filled with photographs. Inside are fragments of lives once lived: family gatherings, quiet streets, moments that seemed ordinary at the time. Taken together, they begin to tell a much larger story. Dokuforte, a growing digital archive of Jewish life across global Jewish communities and in Israel, was inspired by this idea.
Dokuforte is a free photo archive of personal and professional images from the 19th century through the end of the 20th century, capturing Jewish culture, religious practices, and the everyday lives of Israelis and Jews around the world.
I grew up and live in Budapest, and the idea to create this archive came to me during the COVID-19 lockdown while I was exploring the Hungarian public archive Fortepan. I saw how everyday images could bring history to life and began to ask what was missing.
Through JDC’s Mozaik Hub, a professional platform for Jewish community NGOs and initiatives in Budapest, Hungary, I was able to begin developing this idea with the support of funding, mentorship, and a collaborative environment for emerging initiatives.
Although historical photographs are often shared in online groups, I recognized a gap. There was no freely accessible archive focused on documenting Israeli society, Jewish communities, and the relationship between Israel and Jewish communities around the world.
Some of the most striking images in the archive come from Israel’s early years: people building roads, working fields, and establishing communities in difficult conditions. Details such as ill-fitting clothing or limited tools reflect both the challenges and the determination to build something lasting.
These photographs do more than document history — they reveal how people actually lived it. Family albums offer glimpses of daily life across places and generations that, when viewed together, form a broader picture of Jewish experience and connection.
What fascinates me about old photographs is that they allow us to open a kind of shoebox of memories. Through family pictures, we can see how people lived in 1930s Hungary, Yemen, Poland, or Israel.
Many photographs in our communities remain scattered in private collections, social media groups, or archives that can be difficult to access. While institutions have made progress in opening collections, gaps persist.
I created Dokuforte to help fill that space. It is an open community archive where anyone can contribute photographs and help preserve our shared visual history.
1930
1933
1933
Representatives of three populations in Bu’ayna, Israel — Jewish, Greek Orthodox, and Bedouin Arabs. 1933.
Contributed by Dokuforte.
1935
1935
A group from Hashomer Hatzair Hungary in Israel. 1935.
Contributed by Dokuforte and Yehudit Adel Sholdos.
This work is deeply personal for me. My parents and a grandparent were photographers, making images central to how stories were told and understood.
My perspective was further shaped by years spent living in Israel, where I developed a strong sense of belonging alongside uncertainty. This experience shaped my understanding of community, resilience, and shared responsibility — values that continue to guide Dokuforte.
Since the project began in Budapest, many contributions reflect Hungarian Jewish life. For generations, Israel has held a special place for this community, often representing connection, identity, and possibility. That relationship continues to appear in the photographs people share today.
A meaningful partnership with JDC Archives has further expanded this perspective. The archive contributed photographs from Szarvas, the JDC-Lauder international Jewish summer camp in rural Hungary. For decades, Szarvas has brought together young people from across Central and Eastern Europe and beyond, offering an important space to openly express Jewish identity.
The Szarvas images capture both individual moments and a shared experience that spans generations. By contributing them, the JDC Archives helps preserve not only personal memories but also the collective story of an entire community. Collaborations like these strengthen our ability to connect across geographies and over time.
While many of Dokuforte’s early contributions are rooted in Hungary, the project is designed to look beyond any one place. Its long-term vision is to build a global network of hubs where photographs can be collected, digitized, and made accessible, bringing a wider range of Jewish experiences into view.
Family history is history. Every historical event is ultimately built from individual lives, families, and personal experiences. Photographs are one of the most powerful ways to preserve those. As generations become increasingly distant from one another, many stories risk being lost. Physical photographs disappear, people pass away, and memories fade.
Dokuforte creates a bridge across generations, connecting images from the past with the act of sharing them in the present so they remain accessible in the future. At a time when images can be easily manipulated and misinformation spreads quickly, access to authentic historical sources is increasingly important.
Just as importantly, Dokuforte brings the focus back to families. A photograph can prompt simple questions: Who is in this picture? Where was it taken? What was happening just outside the frame? These questions often lead to stories that might otherwise remain untold.
Every photograph is an invitation to ask questions, listen to older relatives, and preserve stories before they disappear. In that sense, Dokuforte is more than an archive – it is a tool for strengthening family memory and our collective heritage.
I invite you to explore Dokuforte and hope it sparks conversations with your family and community. And, please take part in sharing our collective stories by contributing your images to this growing collection.
Noa Schiller is the founder and CEO of Dokuforte. She is a photographer, photojournalist, and photo editor with decades of experience. Noa has received multiple scholarships and awards and has also exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions.
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