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.
1923–1958
And I didn’t have time.
Now it is certain
I didn’t have time.
Half my life.
It is now allowed
To be silent.
My shadows grow
With the stride of the sun.
I am the man
Who didn’t have time.
The Grandfather I Once Had
Every day when his mind was at ease,
Relieved of the need to tell us about the countries he’d seen,
He would raise his hands high above our heads,
Appealing on our behalf before the Almighty to let…
The Syrian-African Rift: Six Poems
The sages say, that at the time the Syrian-African Rift
occurred, the celestial inhabitants were not
up-to-date. Each man was engaged
at his trade. In grinding…
Megilat sefer (The Scroll of the Book)
I was the fourth [child] born and the first son, a tender darling to my father and my mother (cf. Prov. 4:3) after my mother had given birth to three daughters. My parents were worriers and trembled…
Register of a Jewish Midwife
This is the book of the generations/children of man, those that were born by my hands among the Hebrew women. I came to them, I the midwife, for they are vital [Exodus 1:15–19] and give birth to a son…
Travail in an Arab Land
Free of any preoccupations, I allowed myself to seek out and investigate the Jews, their manners and customs. They are good-hearted folk, charitable and hospitable to strangers. They honor the Torah…
María
When my father made his last trip to the Antilles, Salomón, a cousin of his whom he had loved since childhood, had just lost his wife. At a very young age, they had come together to South America…
Sefer hitavkut (Book of Struggle)
You should know and believe me, and understand, that I did not become zealous against the scoffers for my own glory, or for the glory of my father’s house, but that it was zeal for the Almighty that…
Givat ha-moreh [Commentary to Maimonides’ Moreh nevukhim, Guide for the Perplexed]
The telos (takhlit) of man’s activities, in the aspect (behinah) of having will and choice, is the ultimate human good (ha’hatslahah ha’enoshi’it). This excellence necessarily comes after the…
The Rigors of Jewish Historiography
The historiography of no people is so beset with the pretentious and condemnatory views of dilettantes as is that of the Israelites, which everyone fancies to know from the relevant sources. Thus, no…
Impressions of the Prague Revolution
But I want to go on recounting how the Prague movement developed, and what made the revolution, which brought so many impressive, great, and noble things to light everywhere, made everything in Prague…