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.
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…
The Silver Platter
A State is not handed to a people on a silver platter.[Chaim Weizmann, first president of Israel]. . . and the land was silent. The incarnate sunFlickered languidlyAbove the smoldering borders.And a…
The Householder Departs from the City
Going to his room one night,
he locked his door and by lamp-light
counted his money, counted his foes.
Then from the table of his heart
he struck off every name but one,
which would be there till…
Jewish Destiny as the DPs See It: The Ideology of the Surviving Remnant
Today, the Sherit Hapleita has an ideology of its own—this despite the fact that in its outlook on life, in its politics, and its culture, the group is no more unified and no less divided than other…
On the Necessity and Impossibility of Being a Jew
Not seldom, when in conversation my partner draws me into a plural—that is, as soon as he includes my person in whatever connection and says to me: “We Jews . . .”—I feel a not exactly tormenting, but…
This One’s On Me
1. The lives and times of Oedipus and Elektra
began with bloodgrim lust and dark carnality
but I was born next to the Neilson’s factory
where every piece is different, and that’s how I got
my…