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.
The Russian Jew in the United States: Sweatshops in Philadelphia
[ . . . ] We enter a sweatshop on Lombard, Bainbridge, Monroe or South Fourth Street. It may be on one of several floors in which similar work…
Judaism and the Jews
The question I put before you, as well as before myself, is the question of the meaning of Judaism for the Jews.
Why do we call ourselves Jews? Because we are Jews? What does that mean: we are Jews? I…
The Jewish Character of Spinoza’s Teaching
Whoever reads Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, his letters, and even his Hebrew grammar, will recognize and avow that Spinoza was, relative to his times in Amsterdam, if not a great scholar…
The Making of the Modern Jew
For a half-millennium the Jew, rejected by the world, had secluded himself within ghetto walls, unconcerned with what lay without. But the day came when the world…
The Third Party Convention
The Bund has inscribed on its banner the demand for equal civil rights for the Jews. At the Convention the opinion was expressed that Jewish Social Democracy deals with the needs of the Jewish…
Angels of Peace
For many years we have awaited your arrival on our soil. We waited, as we believed that your arrival fulfills our eminent, longing of millennia. To our great pleasure, the joyous day has arrived…
On Women’s Voting
. . . We believe that our outlook on social life in general is more refined and purer than that of contemporary civilized nations. Our family is sacred to us in a manner more profound than [is the…
Hebraism and Universalism in Hebrew Literature
Mr. [Israel Ḥayim] Taviov says: “Those who vehemently demand a large and broad literature in the Hebrew language, comprising all branches of wisdom and science—they are the ultranationalists of the…
A Reply to Mr. Sholem Aleichem
Precisely in the case of a new and difficult question like “Jewish folk-music,” [ . . . ] it is necessary to establish as much as possible [its] specific, objective characteristics . . . You make fun…
Czernowitz Conference Speech: On National Education
Signs of a new spirit among certain circles of the Jewish intelligentsia can be detected even in the private sphere, within the four walls of their homes. It happens—admittedly, not very often, but…
Self-Criticism
The skeptics and rebels who have just recently appeared in our literature say: What? The Jews have survived? Yes, it’s true they have survived. But, my friends, survival alone is not yet a virtue…