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.
Etiquette: Clothing, Manners, and Sexual Behavior
Clothing is an art, and it requires talent from women and men alike. This talent, however, is innate to people. It is a talent that every woman and every man can develop by observing…
Bottoms
To be or not to be—that’s not the question.
Sense or nonsense—that’s my obsession.
For too long, Divine reckoning
has shredded human thinking.
The sum total of justice is a round number:
bright…
Letter to the Art Editor of the New York Times
June 7, 1943Mr. Edward Alden JewellArt EditorNew York Times229 West 43 StreetNew York, N.Y.Dear Mr. Jewell:To the artist, the workings of the critical mind is one of life’s mysteries. That is why, we…
Last Testament
With zeal and zest I threw myself into the work to help assemble archive materials. I was entrusted to be the custodian, I hid the material. Besides me, no one knew. I confided only in my friend Hersh…
The Smell of Humans: A Memoir of the Holocaust in Hungary
One of the comrades on sick call had a chat with an army guard. This is the account he gave:
“How stupid can you get, I ask you, what are the limits of human stupidity! This…
At the Well
Her Yoysef was hanging on the shaft of the well. His beard lay humbly on his breast. His fallen shoulders and feebly dangling hands expressed the most profound hopelessness. What can I do? A stone has…
Jezebel
The days of my life pass by, dissolve like mist.
I don’t know the what and when; I don’t know the who.
Baal and Astarte have grown alien to me.
My kingdom and my foes grow alien, too.
I don’t…
Never Say
Inspired by the Warsaw ghetto uprising, this hymn became the anthem of the Vilna partisan fighters and many other Jewish efforts to resist the Nazis.
The Making of This Book
What makes a book like this more than just a collection of excerpts, strung together interchangeably? What makes it a book? If I were to say it had been a matter of selection, who would venture to…
A Culture Stillborn
It is possible to see the promise of a beginning of Levantine literature—rooted in the realities of the Middle East and influenced by European culture—in Le livre de Goha le Simple [Goha the Fool] by…
He Walked through the Fields
Ruthka [checks the pile of clothes lying on the table]: You’ve given him enough clothes to last him for a year. Gita:When one of our members goes away for a while, I don’t…
Life as a Parable
While my body, in its restlessness, yearned for distances but always inevitably returned to its point of departure, my soul, lacking repose, yearned to travel far into the mighty distances of the…