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.
Seal with Four-winged Uraeus
This seal, found at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem, shows a uraeus or upright cobra with four wings. Modeled on the black-necked cobra that applies its venom both by biting and spitting, it was…
1948
The living room is deserted, dark and quiet. Knocking is heard. Rina comes out of her room carrying an oil lamp to see where the sounds are coming from. She walks around the living room in a…
Integration and Survival
Jewish identity in the preemancipation period assumed essentially one of two forms—religion or communalism. Each in its own way was a break with tradition. Each was predicated on acceptance of the…
The State of the Jews, 1982: Reflections on Jewish Normality, Agony and Glory
For two hundred years, Jews have obsessively sought to achieve two goals—the collective normality of the Jewish people, and the ability to control their own destiny. Since 1782, these goals have been…
Jewish Studies as Oppositional? Or Gettin’ Mighty Lonely Out Here
The proliferation of multicultural courses—not only at the University of Delaware, but across the country—forms a central part of what has come to be termed the “new academy.” By both broadening the…
Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
Captain Wolfgang Hoffmann was a zealous executioner of Jews. As the commander of one of the three companies of Police Battalion 101, he and his fellow officers led their men, who were not SS men but…
Working for the Present: Essays on Contemporary Israeli Culture
Gentile is a category of difference. It is the point of departure, something self-evident. The Jew at prayer declares this daily: “Thou hast chosen us from all the…
Jeremiah’s Prophetic Commission
The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. The word of the Lord came to him in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth…
Good and Bad Figs
The Lord showed me two baskets of figs, placed in front of the Temple of the Lord. This was after King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon had exiled King Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim of Judah, and the officials…
The Locust Invasion and a Call to Turn to God
The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.
Listen to this, O elders,
Give ear, all inhabitants of the land.
Has the like of this happened in your days
Or in the days of…
Shemot 8: The Elders Slipped Out One by One
The whole of chapter three and part of four are taken up with the Divine call to Moses, his preparations for undertaking the mission, the overcoming of all his hesitations, from the historic promise…
Universal Recognition of the Lord and the Restoration of Jerusalem
For then I will make the peoples pure of speech,
So that they all invoke the Lord by name
And serve Him with one accord.
From beyond the rivers of Cush, My suppliants
Shall bring offerings to Me…