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.
Shulamis
CharactersMaenoyakh, an old citizen of BethlehemShulamis, his daughterAvisholom, a young hero descended from the Maccabees.Fourth SceneAvisholom I shall not leave here until I have restedJerusalem is…
Editorial Statement of Der nayer gayst
Many Jews in America owe their spiritual-intellectual development to the progressive Yiddish-language periodicals that are published here. But the existing progressive Yiddish-language periodicals are…
On the Tasks of the Folkspartay
We must not repeat the mistake made by western Jews . . . in denying their nationality and in assimilating completely in all areas of life except religion. . . . We eastern Jews have seen all the…
On Yiddish Dialects
The following descriptions of Yiddish dialects have the same goal as the work published in Volume I of the Tsaytshrift [ journal]. For the most part, the material has been collected the same way…
Moses Mendelssohn, the German and Jewish Philosopher
Moses Mendelssohn’s German Philosophy did not survive him and his generation of the German Aufklärer. As the leading German philosopher, apart from some psychological and aesthetical theories, he…
Letters to Sholem Aleichem
June 17, 1888 [June 29 in the Gregorian calendar]Dear Sir:Several days ago, I received an undated and terse postcard from one of my friends, a person close to me, H. Epstein, in which the following…
To the Modern Girl
It is you, modern girls, whom I address. The modern spirit has completely changed your natures. If the sages of old, who spoke so much about the wonderful strength of woman as opposed to man, found…
To the Reader of Ha-Me‘orer
Look: the life and death of this organ [publication] is in your hands. If you wish, it will expand, flourish, and branch out in quality and quantity, and, if you wish, it will dry up, wither, and fade…
A Hot Shabbat Day
It was Shabbat morning. I was still lying in bed. My mother was already up and awake, wearing her clean white headdress. The other bed opposite mine, where my mother would sleep, was already made…
The Affirmation of the Diaspora
We all recognize the tragic aspects of the Diaspora and we cannot hope to achieve in the Diaspora as full and complete national-cultural development as is possible for a nation living in its own…
Tenant Number 88
Some sort of strange, humid day. . . . Some sort of day with a ragged sun and low, dark clouds, like threads of smoke, already happened once before in the past: in distant years long ago, when our…
Nicolo-Peccavi, or The Dreyfus Affair at Carpentras
It was, in fact, our aunt who had commissioned the bus. Madame Léa Josué Chanaan was our aunt and we called her Aunt Chanaan, just as we called her husband, Monsieur Josué Chanaan, our uncle, although…