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 Message of the Scrolls
In late November 1947, in what had once been a quiet suburb of Jerusalem, I first heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I was at the time Chief of Operations of Haganah, the Jewish underground self-defence…
House of Dolls
[ . . . ] There are moments when the pile of worn clothing in the center of the rag room bestirs itself suddenly like a volcano and sends a pervasive fear throughout the large room. The…
Saul and Johanna
All of a sudden, Grandmother’s empty burial plot is occupied. They finally returned mother to father’s side. One tree spreads its shadow over both their graves. Grandmother, too, finally gets what she…
Have Faith the Day Will Come
This day is our war, my sister,
So I am far away from here.
Please keep our rendez-vous
In our tiny kitchen
Before my usual chair
Fill a glass of wine
And treat it as if I am
Sitting across from…
1923–1958
And I didn’t have time.
Now it is certain
I didn’t have time.
Half my life.
It is now allowed
To be silent.
My shadows grow
With the stride of the sun.
I am the man
Who didn’t have time.
The Grandfather I Once Had
Every day when his mind was at ease,
Relieved of the need to tell us about the countries he’d seen,
He would raise his hands high above our heads,
Appealing on our behalf before the Almighty to let…
The Syrian-African Rift: Six Poems
The sages say, that at the time the Syrian-African Rift
occurred, the celestial inhabitants were not
up-to-date. Each man was engaged
at his trade. In grinding…
Mor u-ketsiyah (Myrrh and Cassia)
In times of emergency, all types of kitniyot (legumes, pulses) may certainly be permitted to be eaten during Passover, for even our Master, the Ba‘al Ha-Turim [Rabbenu Jacob, son of Asher]…
Eleh divre ha-berit (These Are the Words of the Covenant)
These are the words of the covenant as a statute for Jacob, as an everlasting covenant for Israel; the Almighty spoke but once—and He will never alter His law—through the Torah and the ruling which…
Rabbinic Reports on Circumcision
Altona, 24 Ab 5603
Chief Rabbi!
Messrs. Adler and Fuld, members of your congregation, asked for my opinion, from the Jewish-religious perspective…
Leviathan
Having laid out for the reader my thoughts about religion, revelation, and faith/belief, their manifold aim and their various components, I now consider…
A Summary of Modern Jewish History
The Jews are everywhere, in the old world and in the new. They can be found in Jamaica, in New England, in Washington’s America as well as in Bolívar’s, and even in Austral lands. If this people were…