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.
A Letter from Mama Camouna
Not long after Sammy’s visit, my father died after a long illness. My mother’s sorrow and mine were compounded by the fact that there were not ten men who had known him in his life to stand by his…
Hanna Senesh
[When the lights come up again we’re in a courtroom. Three colonels at the judges’ table. On one side, prosecutor Matzkas, and Simon, a military judge. On the other side defense attorney Devcsery. Opp…
Yaʻakobi & Leidental
[Leidental’s room. Evening. Leidental. One of his fingers is bandaged.]Leidental:[To himself.] At eight fifteen I felt I cannot any more with myself. I had: regulation misery, pain to top…
One Moment
One moment of silence, please. If you please. I
would like to say something. He walked
right past me. I could have touched the hem
of his mantle. I did not touch it. Who could have
known what I did…
Shir Leshalom (A Song for Peace)
Let the sun come up today,
Let the morning shine,
All the prayers and plaintive words,
Won’t bring us back to life.
For we whose light is darkened now,
Are covered by the dust,
The bitter tears…
Letter to Gershom Scholem
Berlin-Grunewald
Tauberstr. 16
February 26, 1970
Dear Mr. Scholem,
Writing this letter does not come easily to me; hence the long delay. And now you know already that I have not been able to decide in…
Doctor Zhivago
[Gordon and Zhivago were on their way home in the evening. The sun was going down.] In one village [they passed through] they saw a young Cossack surrounded by a crowd…
Her Lover (Belle du Seigneur)
Behold the Valiant, the five cousins and sworn friends, newly come unto Geneva, mark them well, these men of silver tongue, these Jews of sunnier climes and even finer words, proud to have remained…
The Colonizer and the Colonized
The body and face of the colonized are not a pretty sight. It is not without damage that one carries the weight of such historical misfortune. If the colonizer’s face…
The Elementary School Teacher
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.
—Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a…
In the Vast Silence of Manhattan
[A room in early evening shadows. It is the room of a New York suburban working girl.][Time: The early Thirties. A bell strikes eight times, probably from the bell tower of a nearby church. Rosie is…
Dreams Older Than Memory
The alphabet doesn’t have enough letters, you say, to form the names of so many inexpressible feelings, unexpressed for lack of words, and I say to you that we don’t have enough life, that too much…