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.
Julie and the Miracle
People like to get something for their money, doing business is entertainment as well, and indeed there would be precious little fun to be got out of life in Polana if it were not so. It is equally…
Letter to Rabbi Jacob Moses Karpas against Zionism
May he be written and sealed immediately for good, long life—the honored rabbi, the splendid gentleman, the sharp and erudite, God-fearing, distinguished, may his name be honored, our teacher, R…
The Mound
After you, the killed of the Ukraine;After you, butcheredIn a mound in Gorodishche,The Dnieper town . . .KaddishNo! Heavenly tallow, don’t lick my gummy beards.Out of my mouth’s brown streams of…
Simkhe Platke, or the Universal Swindler
Now in that same shtetl there lived a youth named Shimen, but he was nicknamed Simkhe (joy, celebration) and Plakhte (coarse cloth) because he was barefoot and almost naked and that was all he wore…
Unsatiated Passions
Unsatiated passions want to be satiated,
Arms wish to be tired,
Lips look for merging,
Fingers long for cracking,
Green fires in the eyes are greening greener,
Like eyes of wolves in frozen fields,
G…
A Rebuttal to Opotowski
As soon as [Opotowski] came, he and the others were told that their chances of securing employment in a region where there are few Jews will be much better if they do not have such long beards. He and…
Etiquette: Clothing, Manners, and Sexual Behavior
Clothing is an art, and it requires talent from women and men alike. This talent, however, is innate to people. It is a talent that every woman and every man can develop by observing…
Judeo-Arabic Proverbs from Fez
1. “If a pale woman desires you, do not desire her! Do not waste on her the legacy from your father and your grandfather! She is like a white spot that, settling in the eye, blinds it.”
This…
In Defense of the Natural Response
When macabre reality gnaws at a person’s soul, it is hard to devote oneself to psychological investigation, even of very pressing subjects. The event also seemed cut off from life, entirely academic…
Last Will and Testament
My beloved son and daughter!
I am writing these lines, my dear children, in the vale of tears of…
Consider Iwo Jima
This is perhaps the grimmest, and surely the holiest task we have faced since D-Day. Here before us lie the bodies of…
A Load of Shoes
The cartwheels rush,
quivering.
What is their burden?
Shoes, shivering.
The cart is like
a great hall:
the shoes crushed together
as though at a ball.
A wedding? A party?
Have I gone blind?
Who…