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.
A Call to the Jewish Youth Whose Hearts Lie with Their People and with Zion
Brothers!While our true Zionist goal is more or less clear—namely, our national and political revival in the Land of Zion—the ways that lead us to our goal are still clouded in fog. We have been going…
Soviet Russia as I Saw It
[ . . . ] We have heard so much about the achievements of the Evsektsiia [Jewish sections of the Communist Party] in the field of Jewish culture that for this alone many…
Order of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor
To all Commissioners of Immigration and Immigrant Inspectors in charge: It is hereby directed that, with a view to promptly obtaining definite information with regard to alien Anarchists and criminals…
To My Soldier Son
My precious heart, my handsome soldier son,
I write this letter with my blood to you.
Since you’ve had to take the Kaiser’s shilling
our world has turned red of a fiery hue.
The big decisive battle…
The Mission of Ha-Shiloaḥ
In establishing this monthly periodical today, we believe that we are doing that which the times demand, its absence being felt by many.
We are not establishing a study house for sages who will sit…
Rosh Hashanah Sermon for the Jewish Father
Assimilation in our day has spoiled and distorted the essence of our festivals. It has turned Rosh Hashanah into a day of festivity filled with the sound of music and song. However, the first day of…
Halachah and Aggadah
But must we conclude—as many think—that Halachah and Aggadah are two irreconcilable opposites?
Those who so conclude are confusing accident and form with substance; as who should declare the ice and…
Ghingeli
Oh, Ghingeli, my bleeding heart,
Who is this guy who dreams in snow
And drags his feet like a pair of logs
In the middle of the street at night?
It is the rascal Moyshe-Leyb,
Who will freeze to…
Here Lives the Jewish People
The towering life of the towering city
Is burning in white fires.
And in the streets of the Jewish East side
The whiteness of the fires burns even whiter.
I like to stroll in the burning frenzy of…
Vilna
Someone in a tales is walking your rooftops.
Only he is stirring in the city by night.
He listens. Old gray veins quicken—sound
Through courtyard and synagogue like a hoarse, dusty heart.
You are a…
Moscow Night, End of December 1934
It’s hard to be clever these nights,
And useless to be modern.
Useless to smile knowingly and observe with melancholy
The language bastardisms of history:
“The government of the Republic is delivered…