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.
Red Blossoms
On this ancient trunk
With hanging branches, gray flax
I’m a young branch.
To grow: my sole passion.
Green shoot
rising
high
to the bright,
I’ll bring red blossoms
to argue:
World, I’m right!
From…
Tefillah
Oh my God, my God,
Mighty One of my existence,
have mercy on Your lost son
who has wandered from the ancestral path
and, exiled to cold and unfamiliar climes,
sought to be close to You,
but has not…
All Is God’s
Man has separated lust and sorrow.
But God holds them together like day and night.
I know lust. I know intense suffering.
I praise God’s one name.
Translated by David Soeterndorp.
To My Land
I have not sung to you, my land,
And I have not glorified your name
With acts of valor,
With booty of battles;
My hands have planted just a tree
On the quiet Jordan shores,
My legs have trodden down…
Two Fatherlands
O, if through thy eyes, like through sea waves,
My love could sail like a ship,
Long ago with full sails I would have boldly
Struck to your heart, like to the Holy Land.
If you light up for me in…
Yom HaKippurim
Do you know who turns and returns?
Do you know the meaning of Atonement?
Do you know who watched for you by night,
Late, and in the early morning light?
Do you know who verges on Atonement?
Do you…
Bolted Room
Dark, bolted room.
Thick air soaked with fear and danger.
Fabius Lind—eye to eye
With a bewildering woman.
Fabius Lind is small and trembling,
The woman is big and growing—and pouring out
Odors of a…
The Nest Disappears
(Written at the end of 1939 in Havana—with thoughts about Poland)
Our poor nest eternally atremble
in the wind.
What will happen now, in bloody storm,
mayn kind?
Now, in bloody storm . . . ?
The…
The Heritage of 5703
5703—Because of its horrors, all the preceding years of Hitler will pale in people’s memory, even 5677 [1917] and 5665 [1905], and even 5408 [1648] and 5252 [1492]. In none of these peak years of the…
Shards
Now, when my vision turns in on itself,
My shocked eyes open, all their members see
My heart has fallen like a mirror on
A stone and shatters, ringing, into splinters.
Certainly, not every shard is…
You’ll Return with God’s Help
You will come back.
You will, with God’s help, come back
With a far-off, alien look.
(I’m preparing myself,
I already know,
I’ve seen how they come back.)
You will sit in your regular chair, unsure
A…
Yonatan
I run on the bridge
and the children follow
Yonatan
Yonatan they call
a little blood
just a little blood to finish up the honey
I’d let them pierce me with tacks
but the children want
and they are…