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.
Zayt gezunt (Farewell)
Farewell, farewell,
Tomorrow I depart.
I’ve sewn myself a pack
And had my hair cut off.
I’ve got myself a belt
That’s tethered to my chains,
Said good-bye to all my neighbors
Through the wall that…
The Gathering of Israel, Kibbutz Galuyot
Gedula Ogen’s ceramic art was said to have been inspired by her early exposure to ancient arts and crafts; as a child she had accompanied her father on trips to photograph archaeological digs. The…
My First Encounter with Peretz
[The writings of the nineteenth-century maskilic writers] Perets Smolenskin and Yitsḥok Erter opened cracks in the faith of Hasidic young men [like Asch himself]. Their life of [Talmud] study without…
Oldest Jewish Cemetery in America
The oldest Jewish cemetery in the United States is located in New York City; the grave of Cantor Gershom Mendes Seixas can be seen here in the burial grounds of Congregation Shearith Israel.
The Voice of Gladness
I have merited to make this book, which I named Kol sasson [The Voice of Gladness], for the reason that our masters of blessed memory said that it is obligatory for everyone…
Feuchtwanger Cent
In 1829, German Jewish metallurgist Lewis Feuchtwanger attempted to introduce a metal alloy known as “German silver” into U.S. coinage, promoting this nickel silver as a less-expensive alternative for…
To Our Readers (of Magyar Zsidó Szemle)
We are calling upon the Hungarian general public and especially our Jewish coreligionists to support a new undertaking. Our undertaking does not seek to compete with an existing one; rather, it…
The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln
It is not a grave that opens up to us in this book, but a human heart. the memoirs that are now seeing the light for the first time would have deserved to be published a long time…
The Organization of the Jewish Proletariat in Russia
Anyone arriving from Western Europe by steamship to Mohilev for the first time will be struck on the dock by nothing as much as by the enormous throng of…
The Grand Sanhedrin
Édouard Moyse’s painting portrays the Grand Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court assembled by Napoleon in 1807 to ratify the answers of an assembly of Jewish communal leaders to twelve questions submitted…
The Sociological Significance of ‘The Stranger’
If wandering, considered as the liberation from every given point in space, is the conceptual opposite to being fixed to a given point, then the sociological form of “the stranger” presents the union…
Memorial to a Shtetl
Far, far from the paved roads and broad ways, far, far from the ordinary shtetls, stood isolated villages that had a different sky over them and a different sun.
The God of heaven in His mercy made…