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.
Ammunition Hill
“It was then the morning of the second day of the war in Jerusalem. The horizon paled in the east. We were at the climax of the battle on Ammunition Hill. We’d been fighting there for three hours. A…
Erev
In every village in the region, in every farmhouse you’d meet them, the Boyars. The first Boyar, family legend had it, had settled in the Polesian forests many generations ago. His name had been Ezra…
My First Lessons in Wolfenbüttel
In the year 1803, on Sunday afternoon the 5th of June, I and my uncle, accompanied—from the town gate onwards—by a soldier, arrived at the bet midrash, located at the Zimmerhofe. The soldier left us…
Tiferet Yonatan (The Splendor of Jonathan)
This is what the episode of the Generation of the Dispersion was all about; that they were afraid of a Flood and accordingly sought to erect a tower up to the heavens. One has, however, to understand…
The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon: Maskilic View of Heder
I must now say something of the condition of the Jewish schools in general. The school is commonly a small smoky hut, and the children are scattered, some on benches, some on the bare earth. The…
Sefer kiryat arba
There is a matter well known and widely publicized among all those who have come through the gates of our city, Constantinople [Istanbul], may God preserve it. . . . [I]t occurred about two years…
The Liturgical Addresses of the Jews
Permit me to preface the necessary information about the contents and the meaning of the book which is herewith presented to my readers with a few remarks about Jewish…
Preface to Vindiciae Judaeorum
It is remarkable to observe how prejudice changes its form in every century in order to oppress us and to pose difficulties for our admission to civil society. In former, superstitious times, it was…
Why Our Forefather Adam Had to Bite the Apple
Dear reader, take out a sheet of paper and a pen and follow my calculations. This measure will not be pointless, as the numbers we will be dealing with are rather enormous, and mistakes can be easily…
Recruits
Aaron:It’s all a plain lie. It’s because our Jews throughout the land in the little villages are so primitive, so stupid, they can’t even read. Anyone will tell them the most absurd things and they…
Alms Box
This alms box was affixed to the wall in the Old Synagogue (Alte-Schul, or Stara Bóżnica) of Kraków, located in the Kazimierz district of the city. Because it was in a part of the Polish-Lithuanian…