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.
Yizkor, 1943
An elegy to the Jews deported from the Warsaw ghetto from a Jew hiding on the “Aryan” side of the city.
Heder Riddles and Puzzles among Lithuanian Jews
A peasant was transporting a large cart of hay. He had to pass through a low gateway, but the cart couldn’t pass under it. People advised the peasant to wear glasses with magnifying lenses, so that…
In my cottage was I one day
In my cottage was I one day merrily
Despite the Fortune full of treachery.
“What are you doing?” Providence asked me.
“Why are you obsessed only with this life?
You must also know of the…
Crimes against Persons
These Exodus verses form part of the Hebrew Bible's legal framework, addressing personal status and punishments for crimes against different social classes.
The Definitive Orange on the Seder Plate Story
The creator of the popular ritual of placing an orange on the Seder plate describes exactly how this innovation arose, its intended significance, and the problematic erasure of its origins.
Problems with Immigration
Russian engineer Aaron Pavlovsky was invited to Argentina to found its first agricultural school in 1883. In this speech, he insists that the country’s economic future depends upon immigration.
Advertisement for the People’s Theater
In three acts by the famous author Yitsḥak Katzenelson.Karmel, a rich Jewish timber merchant Mr. KharazYoḥanan, his son Mr. MikhaleskoBill, a gypsy captain Mr. LandauTarta, an old gypsy…
The Unethical and the Unspeakable: Women and the Holocaust
What can we do to ensure that Holocaust memory not only views male suffering but also recognizes women’s special and separate agony?
The First Pioneers
Alpersohn’s narrative about the early days of Colonia Mauricio blames the Jewish Colonization Association’s local administrators for the colonists’ suffering.
The Neila
The end of the day approaches.
The Book of Life and Death
is about to be closed,
and the hand of God will inscribe
the destiny of man.
It hesitates, trembles, stops.
A voice, sweet and frail,
an…
Torah Binder (Munich)
This Torah binder, made for boys at birth and later brought by young men as a symbol of participation in the synagogue, illustrates the fixed nature of traditional gender expectations.
Justyna’s Diary
While imprisoned by the Nazis and awaiting her death, Gusta Dawidsohn-Draenger recalls her last supper with other resistance leaders in the Vilna ghetto.