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.
An Anti-Zionist’s Comment to the Polish Jewish Intelligentsia
I was born a Jew, and as I attained self-awareness, I realized that almost four thousand years of human history were working to present me with questions: How was I to understand myself as a Jew, how…
Issues of the Hour
This period of time is marked by four phenomena. Three of them concern everyone, and one concerns religious youth specifically.
1. Despair…
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…
Notes in Response to the Zionist Cause
3 Shevat 5663 [January 31, 1903]
From all the Zionist essays emerge that which we see with our very eyes: their entire purpose and effort is to instill the supposition among Jews that the Torah and…
The Rinsed Fences . . .
The rinsed fences dry themselves in the wind.
The kneaded black earth turns softer under my feet.
Soaked soil, tousled and wanton wind,
What more can I want from you today?
It seems to me that I’ve…
Toil
Dress me, good mother, in a glorious robe of many colours, and at dawn lead me to [my] toil.
My land is wrapped in light as in a prayer shawl. The houses stand forth like frontlets; and the roads…
The Machine
The machine, the tool.
Walls without bricks—my cage.
My hands’ holy blood
Drips from the walls.
But the blood of my soul
Drips beyond the threshold
Both out there and in here
Drips the blood of…
Jeshurun
Jeshurun sings when they see him
Tender beauty in her youth
She plays and her violin is on her bosom
And its singing brings gladness to the heart of the gloomy
An unadorned graceful gazelle
Embellish…
X-Rays
Work, tradesmen, shops, the town is there
with old maids polished down by emptiness
on haberdashers’ threshold where the antique sun
brushes off jewels dusty with being looked at.
Dressed up for…
Moon
An old sight too has its moment of birth.
A birdless sky
Strange and set apart.
Facing your widow on the moonlit night stands
A city plunged in crickets’ tears.
And when you see a road still…