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.
Bluebeard’s Castle
Judith:Ev’rything lies deep in shadow.[She feels her way forward.][She shudders.]The walls are sweating.Tell me BluebeardWhy this moisture on my fingers?Walls and rafters, all are weeping.[She covers…
My Life
You understand, my sweet confessor, that I could be even more of a sinner than not, and I hope just the same for your absolution. In the meantime, I will tell you that after…
The Mystical Autobiography of a Sephardic Woman from Salonika
One afternoon a friend from class asked me a religious question. After I answered her, she remarked that it was curious that our teacher had not been able to answer the same question. “Don’t be so…
Portrait of Fanny von Arnstein
Fanny von Arnstein (née Itzig; 1758–1818) was born into a prominent Jewish banking family in Berlin and married a leading Viennese financier. She entertained many luminaries at her famous salon. Having…
Expedition Findings on East European Jews
Khaye-Gite came. She is a typical grandmother. She talks to God quietly, politely. She wasn’t too keen on telling us about being a grandmother. She just told us a few things. She knows lots…
Diary Entries: On the Massacres in Urfa and Izmir
The city of Urfa, located between Palestine and Karaman, was the site of a very well-organized and previously planned massacre.
On the past August 18…
Children, Onward! (Yeladim, lekhu!)
Children, onward. Children, onward!
Through this gate.
Every boy shall pass.
Whoever has a white flag,
Go to the right:
Whoever has a blue flag,
Go to the left.
Children, onward. Children, onward!
On…
Yiddish Folk Songs
In this volume I have made a selection of religious and holiday songs.
Actually, they constitute a single group, since in reality it is hard to draw a sharp dividing line between the first group and…
Grand Synagogue of Paris
Designed in the neo-Romanesque style of many contemporaneous French churches, the Grand Synagogue of Paris followed the prevailing architectural aesthetic in France, integrating the architectural and…
Moses Hess
The Central Committee of the German Zionist Federation [Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland] asked me to collect the Jewish essays by Moses Hess and to edit them on the occasion of the…
The Last Breath
The Last Breath is one of the genre paintings depicting the lives of fishermen and their families for which Jozef Israëls was best known. In this scene, a woman is weeping over the body of her husband…
Suicide
The only essential difference between Catholicism and Protestantism is that the second permits free inquiry to a far greater degree than the first. Of course, Catholicism by the very fact that it is…