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.
Portnoy’s Complaint
Even if I consider myself too much of a big shot to set foot inside a synagogue for fifteen minutes—which is all he is asking—at least I should have respect enough to change into decent clothes for…
Epitaph from the Tombstone of Rebecca Henriquez da Costa
On the day of my abundant joy
illness suddenly overcame me
Birth pangs and rupture
overwhelmed me
I gave birth and died, like a blossom
I turned away
And the fruit of my womb was
brought with me to…
Statement of Mourning
Do you deem me to be hard and evil-hearted in that I should hasten to do a match during my period of mourning? Am I to forget the love of the wife of my youth, my pure dove, whom God graciously gave…
Private Journal of a Visit to Egypt and Palestine
There is no city in the world which can bear comparison in point of interest with Jerusalem,—fallen, desolate, and abject even as it appears—changed as it has been…
Die Pinchasgasse
“What you spend in honor of the holy days, the Lord will richly reward!” says the Talmud, and pious Pinchas granted everything his wife demanded. Clothes for the children and ornaments for herself…
The Polish Lad
If my father had been able to foresee even a thousandth part of the trials I was to endure he might have been rather less ardent on the night my mother conceived me. . . . Now, of…
Or la-yesharim (Light for the Righteous)
To explain the verse with which we started, we will set forth another thesis. It is a custom in Israel—and custom has the status of Torah—for preachers to travel from city to city to rebuke the people…
The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon: Maskilic View of Heder
I must now say something of the condition of the Jewish schools in general. The school is commonly a small smoky hut, and the children are scattered, some on benches, some on the bare earth. The…
The Hebrew Crusading Newspaper
We [of the Polish weekly journal Jutrzenka (Dawn), October 25, 1861] have already had the opportunity to mention a number of periodicals devoted entirely to Jewish affairs. We have also named three…
Recruits
Aaron:It’s all a plain lie. It’s because our Jews throughout the land in the little villages are so primitive, so stupid, they can’t even read. Anyone will tell them the most absurd things and they…
Shir hama‘alot (Song of Ascents)
“Shir ha-ma‘alot (Song of Ascents),” Psalm 126, is customarily recited or sung before the Grace After Meals on the Sabbath and festivals. There are many different tunes for the song. A Yiddish…
Baal T’fillah: Oder, Der practische Vorbeter (Prayer Leader: Or The Practical Litanist)
The first edition of Baal T’fillah was published in 1871. A compendium of over 1,500 Jewish traditional melodies, according to the traditions of German, Polish, and Portuguese (Sephardic) Jews, the…