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.
Periodization of the Eras and the Evolution of the Generations
Rabbi Elhanan related:
“I once asked the Hafetz Chaim:
“Granted that we are accustomed to a division of eras in Jewish religious history—the Tannaitic era separately, and the Amoraic era separately…
An Open Letter about Literature
To the editorial board of Ha-Nir, greetings.For some time, I have wanted to tell our honorable writers what a simple householder [ba‘al ha-bayit] like me wants from our literature.By using the term si…
An Introductory Talk on the Yiddish Language
Ahead of the first verses of the Eastern European Jewish poets, I would like to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, how much more Jargon [Yiddish] you understand than you believe you do.
I am not actually…
Poem
On Russian fields, in the twilights of winter!
Where can one be lonelier, Where can one be lonelier?
The doddering horse, the squeaking sleigh,
the path under snow—that is my way.
Below, in a…
Conversation with a Countryman
An old Jew asked me near the Jaffa Gate:
“Is the Saxon Garden still there? The same as ever?
Is there a fountain? At the entrance from Czysta Street
In the old days confectioners had a shop there…
Red Evenings
Into its own gold, the evening melted.
Bullet laughed midair across to bullet.
Colossal city fought with city, giants—
The sky disintegrated in red fragments.
Hatless, soldiers fly across the…
Song of the Yellow Patch
How does it look, the yellow patch
With a red or black Star-of-David
On the arm of a Jew in Naziland—
Against the white ground of a December snow?
How would it look, a yellow patch
With a red or…
To Be Said at the Seder
Over and over, when the wayside dust had grayed us,
And we came and knocked at another’s door,
He threatened us with his fist and gainsaid us:
This is not your place! Move on!
Over and over.
Over…
A Child
I have a friend, a teacher, with shaggy hair black as pitch.
He has a child (his wife is still a child too)
and when he comes home, difficult and gloomy,
she runs to meet him, like a quivering wave:…
Good Night, World
Good night, wide world.
Big, stinking world.
Not you, but I, slam the gate.
In my long robe,
With my flaming, yellow patch,
With my proud gait,
At my own command—
I return to the ghetto.
Wipe out…
The National Being and the Jewish Community
[ . . . ] If against the assimilationist the American spirit affirms the right to be different, against the segregationist it affirms the right of free association of the different with one another…
Six Million Accusers
When I stand before you here, Judges of Israel, to lead the Prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, I am not standing alone. With me are six million accusers. But they cannot rise to their…