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.
Popular Poetry of the Russian Jews
[ . . . ] Similarly, the Russian Jews use the traditional rhyming couplet in those verses that chronicle a historical event or inculcate an ethical truth. The real folksongs, however, are set to music…
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…
Responsum: On Reciting the Shema‘ in the Presence of Bareheaded Women
‘Arukh ha-shulḥan, oraḥ ḥayim § 75:7And now come and let us shout out against the licentiousness of our generation, on account of our many sins. For it has now been many years that the daughters of…
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…
With the Holy Poem
With the holy poem
clenched between my teeth,
I set forth alone
from that wolf-cave, my home,
to roam
street after street
like a wolf
with his solitary bone.
There is prey enough in the street
to…
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…
Three Foundations (Sholem Aleichem and the Yiddish Literary Tradition)
[ . . . ] Why is fame accorded to this particular individual, far and beyond his own time and place and why does he continue to capture new readers both in the original and in translation? [ . . . P…