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.
Warsaw Ghetto Memorial (Warsaw, Poland)
When the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial was erected in 1948, it stood amid the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. One of the key intentions was to convey the message that Jews had not gone to their deaths in the…
Morning Prayer
To one who honors you, Lord, be just,
And may my sonorous work be blessed.
Dear lord, by your will be it wrought
That out of nothing comes a new Thought.
Let it be pure, proud, faithful…
And the Bush Was Not Consumed
Herbert Ferber’s twelve-foot-high sculpture was originally commissioned to adorn the façade of Congregation B’nai Israel in Milburn, New Jersey. Percival Goodman, the new building’s architect…
A Winter Echo
Burning kisses now are born
Within his heart for his chosen—
And, landing on red little lips,
Immediately are frozen.
Then a frisky little horse
Overturns the sleigh—
A snowy, stony canopy
Buries…
I Have My Mother’s Black Hair
I have my mother’s black hair and green eyes,
my father’s delicate thin hands
and blood that sings and flares,
blood of grandfathers—Jews along the Dnieper;
on my head, the many nights with friends
s…
Zerubavel
Daniel [Puts his hand on his forehead and thinks for a while]:The hours of the murderous Babylonian Empire are numbered; Nebuchadnezzar’s wicked family will soon be eradicated. Koresh, the Persian…
God of Vengeance
Manke:Wait, let’s signal Rivkele quietly. [Basha and Reyzl exit. Manke takes a stick and very softly taps a corner of the ceiling. We can hear the girls outside hopping around in the puddles, taking…
Wedding Riddle
This wedding riddle from Italy is written in Hebrew and Judeo-Italian. Wedding songs, sometimes performed by professional jesters, were traditional at Jewish weddings. Some had lyrics in the form of…
A Jewish Tailor
A Jewish Tailor is one of Mark Antokolski’s earliest sculptures, created while he was still a student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. The work appeared in an era of liberalization of tsarist…
The Future of the Jews: A Response to Werner Sombart
We want to scrape off the eggshells of the ghetto and live as children of the present in the midst of German intellectual life, but without breaking with our past and shaking off the legitimate…
The Face of East European Jewry
Is this the Jew of the East? Is he an old man, who, almost entirely removed from the present day and certainly removed from the future, lives a life that is limited to the most oppressed and narrowest…
On Matters of the Hour
Now I want to talk about the approach to the Arab question. When I was discussing Brit Shalom [Covenant of Peace], I asked: Can there be a common position of Zionists and non-Zionists on this question…