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.
Life as a Parable
While my body, in its restlessness, yearned for distances but always inevitably returned to its point of departure, my soul, lacking repose, yearned to travel far into the mighty distances of the…
Mr. Israel Shefi’s Night of Independence
[While the song from the radio can still be heard, Israel sits motionless, in such a way that it is hard to tell whether he is checking a test, thinking, or is just sunk in his place. Later, suddenly…
Isaac
Early in the morning the sun took a walk in the woods
with me and my father
my right hand in his left.
A knife flashed between the trees like lightning.
And I’m so scared of the fear in my eyes…
The Cobbler’s Song
Shlomo reclines within his shrine
Woe to my days, woe to my nights
Everyone knows how he is
Nobody knows about me
Woe to my days, woe to my nights
As if it means something to anybody.
If I have a…
Inaugural Issue of Soviet Homeland
Dear Reader!
We are placing in your hands this first number of Sovetish heymland [Soviet Homeland]. In it you will feel the breath of our times. You will receive news of literary life and hear the…
Chapters of My Autobiography
The story of my life is only exceptional in that it represents a great change of identity in the heart of the Jewish people. [ . . . ]
I was born a Jewish Algerian—a French citizen to boot—and during…
Chicken Soup with Barley
Ronnie:Everything has broken up around you and you can’t see it.Sarah [shouting]:What, what, what, you mad boy? Explain what you mean.Ronnie:What has happened to all the comrades, Sarah? I even blush…
La Place de l’étoile
Rue Sainte-Catherine, people turned as we passed. Probably because of my father’s purple suit, his Kentucky green shirt and the same old shoes with the astrakhan spats. I fondly…
Babi Yar
Had I fastened
The cradle on a rafter,
And rocked it—and rocked it.
My little son, my Yankl.
But the house has vanished
Into a fiery dome,
How then can I rock
My little son, my own?
Had I…
Moroccan Jews in Their Hour of Decision
The Jews of Morocco are in the limelight today. The condition of the Jews in a given country always has a certain international dimension. It is a kind of sociological test and a touchstone…
The Bar Mitzvah Speech
Bernardo Tzalkin stood there as though he had just been drenched with a bucket of cold water. Perplexed, at a loss for words, he tried to ask the doctor whether the boy could possibly get out of bed…
On the Cutting Edge of Life
The men, women, and children who arrived, physically destroyed, at the death camp, had only one fixed idea: to survive. The average person, living in a bustling metropolis and enjoying freedom to a…