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.
The Idea Remains
Since the song of victory is silent
About the man now overcome.
I will serve as Hector’s witness.
There once was a Germany, we all know it, that belonged to the world, and that was received by the…
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
The events of 1968 therefore came as a shock to me. [ . . . ]
One could of course continue to claim that it was not the people but only those horrible communists, those monstrous rulers, who with…
“Prélude,” Abishag
For my daughter Nedjéand for her husband Armand Bengui.Where word and spirit make feeling divineI see creation and I see poetry . . .But I know I risk the sin of heresyIf I say the words and spirit…
Studies in Prejudice
At this moment in world history anti-Semitism is not manifesting itself with the full and violent destructiveness of which we know it to be capable. Even a social disease has its periods of quiescence…
Reflections on Little Rock
Finally, I should like to remind the reader that I am writing as an outsider. I have never lived in the South and have even avoided occasional trips to Southern states because they…
Jewish Women Call for Change
The Jewish tradition regarding women, once far ahead of other cultures, has now fallen disgracefully behind in failing to come to terms with developments of the past century.
Accepting the age-old…
Sunday Shtetl
Rabbi Levi Yitskhok’s drayman—the one who wore
tales and tfiln as he smeared the wheels
of his wagon with tar—
turns up in the shape of a bunch of Jews
hanging around their houses,
washing the car
(w…
Derashot ḥatam sofer (Sermons of Ḥatam Sofer)
A sealed Torah was given to us; it is doubtless a Torah of Truth but it is disguised. Every day the Holy One, blessed be He, renews those who study it for its own sake and they find a new taste in it…
On the Emancipation of Women in Jewish Worship
Theology teaches us that when God the Eternal formed man He gave him an extra rib. This rib was destined for the formation of woman in order that this creature, who was to become the rich…
Shalom al Yisra’el (Peace upon Israel)
Upon you, great ones, the rebbes of the Hasidim, who follow the path of the Ba‘al Shem Tov, and of whose glorious name they boast and by…
Book of the Kahal: Materials for the Study of the Jewish Life
An agent of the kahal who is charged with monitoring Jewish cases in the police and in giving gifts to officials is a Jewish middleman.
Jews utilize the art of the middleman not only in trade…
Scroll of the Book of Esther
This scroll of Esther from Germany, created for use on the holiday of Purim, is extensively decorated, with illustrations of biblical scenes from the Esther story, as well as various flora and fauna…