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 Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition
[ . . . ] That the status of the Jews in Europe has been not only that of an oppressed people but also of what Max Weber has called a “pariah people” is a fact most clearly appreciated by those who…
Moments of Hope
Jews, let us be cheerful!
It won’t be long, don’t fear—
The war will soon be over.
Their end is very near.
Cheerful, don’t you worry.
Don’t go around so sad.
Have both hope and patience—
Bear things…
Birds Are Drowsing
Birds are drowsing on the branches.
Sleep, my darling child.
At your cradle, in the field,
A stranger sits and sings.
Once you had another cradle
Woven out of joy.
And your mother, oh your mother
W…
An Open Wound
Six million perished not because of a cataclysm of nature, as is evoked by use of that inadequate term “holocaust”; they died not because they lacked courage, but because they lacked the minimum…
Clockwork Doll
That night, I was a clockwork doll
and I whirled around, this way and that,
and I fell on my face and shattered to bits
and they tried to fix me with all their skill.
Then I was a proper doll once…
Each Rose
Each rose is an island
of the promised peace,
the eternal peace.
Inside the petals
of each rose dwells
a sapphire bird called
“And They Shall Beat Their Swords.”
And it seems so
close, the light…
Fool’s Paradise: Germany Jewry, 1933–38
Looking back, we readily recognize how many illusions were inherent in Jewish ideologies.
The Assimilationists idealized emancipation. Some of them became German…
The Case of Boris Kochubiyevsky
On May 13–16th, 1969, the Kiev Regional Court examined the case of Boris Kochubiyevsky, accused under article 187-1 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, which corresponds to article 190-1 of the Russian…
Isbilia
I’m seeking you, Isbilia, my sultana, on the cloudy circle of water where I spread my glance to pierce your reflection, somewhere, between the foam and the wave, on the crest of imperceptible…
The Future of the American Jew
If we Jews had our patron saints, the priest-prophet Ezekiel would be the patron saint of those of us who are vitally concerned in the outcome of the present crisis in…
New York: February 1965
On a day transparent with light
like a landscape by Monet,
my childhood broke away
from a small Jewish town
and glided on ice
blue in the distance—
while a small cloud hovered in me
like a cloud of a…