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 Death of the Tavern Keeper’s Wife
With every stone that was set in the new barn, another drop of life seemed to ebb from the wife of the randar or tavern keeper. When she looked out at the building, she often said that she would not…
Seething Times
This morning I met Vaclav on the street.
“God himself has arranged our meeting,” he continued after the usual greetings and inquiries about health. “Walking here, I thought of you.”
“Might I be able…
Rabbis of Schwerin to Moses Mendelssohn
Schwerin, 18 May 1772
15 Iyar 5532 to the Jewish counting
To the man possessed of abundant dominion, wisdom, and understanding, renowned for his knowledge, whose name is spoken of in the far-flung…
Silliness and Sanctimony
Yetkhen:And how crude he was with me! He wants to arrange with Papa to marry me! How do you like that? I’d like to meet the man who’ll force me to marry someone! No! No father can do that—I have…
Notes of a Jew
However modestly my parents lived in the country, however little I was used to luxury and every comfort, at least at home I was used to cleanliness and order…
Letter to Federal Constitutional Convention
7 September 1787SiresWith leave and submission I address myself to those in whom there is wisdom and understanding and knowledge, they are the honourable personages appointed and Made overseers of a…
Letter Addressed to the Conference of Constantinople in Favor of the Jews of the Orient
Paris, December 1876
To Mr. President and Members of the Conference of Constantinople
Sirs,
You were nominated to discuss the interests of a great number of people in the Orient, and to accomplish a…
The Flower
Where everyone travels, in the middle of the road,
there is a wonderful flower.
It’s been lying there and rotting for several days now.
The wind blows it around,
and it cries out and weeps a great…
Synagogue (Gwoździec, Poland)
The wooden synagogue in Gwoździec, eastern Galicia (modern-day Poland), was one of more than two hundred wooden synagogues that existed in Poland before World War II. Wooden synagogues were a…
Portrait of Hezekiah da Silva
Born in Livorno, Tuscany, in 1656, Hezekiah ben David de Silva was a scholar best known for his halakhic work Peri ḥadash (New Fruit). De Silva studied in Syria and later headed a yeshiva in Jerusalem…