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.
Masadah
On an autumn night, on a bed of sorrows, far from home and shattered hearth,
My mother died;
A last tear froze in her eyes as she gasped a dying blessing
To me, her son, setting forth…
A Story of Rabbi Levi Yitsḥak of Berditshev
Once upon a time the tsadik Rebbe Levi Yitsḥak of Berditshev was in the city of Polonnoye, and an acquaintance approached him. He [the acquaintance] was an extremely poor man, with three sons and two…
The Jewish Woman
I am a stranger.
Since no one dares approach me
I would be girded with towers
That wear their steep and stone-gray caps
Aloft in clouds.
The brazen key you will not find
That locks the musty…
Yiddish Folk Songs with Their Original Airs: Introduction
The songs that are found in the following collection are genuine folk songs: folk songs in the fullest sense of the word. These songs are now being published for the first time. After having wandered…
Lullaby
Hush little baby. Forty-six years now
the night has rocked itself in my empty cradle
Now a gray head is rocked to sleep with the same tune:
Standing at the cradle’s head
No angel with two white wings…
Goyim in the Ghetto
There’s a folk saying: “The way it goes with the Christians, so it goes with the Jews.” Many concessions were made to the goyim, especially in matters concerning the ghetto. The guards at the ghetto…
Heart of a Wife: The Diary of a Southern Jewish Woman
D-Day at last. The invasion started about 1 a.m., and I have been listening to the radio since 8. My first reaction, and I’m sure everyone else’s—“Thank God, and God keep…
Suite Française
Madame Perrin told them that her son had died a hero’s death in Normandy as the Germans advanced; she had received permission to visit his grave. She complained at great length about the cost of this…
How?
How and with what will you fill
Your cup on the day you’re free?
Will you in your joy still
Hear the scream of the past
Where the skulls of chained days
Clot in bottomless pits?
Searching…
A Bowl of Raisins, or A Thousand and One Jokes
Jewish humor of recent generations, in all its manifestations—jokes, puns, witticisms, and anecdotes—has found patrons within Our Language [a Hebrew-language periodical] and already…
The Newly Arrived Men of Letters
The man of letters who cares about his links with the people—who is of the opinion that there is no backbone to his literary production except when his social source is present, typified by the…
The Artist and the Falafel
A mighty gust of a cruel wind slid down from Mount Carmel toward the street.
After having flooded its lights, its tumult and the aromas emanating from its restaurants, it continued making its way to…