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 Cursed Well
Even though the town has a well right in the middle of the marketplace, many of its finest people use river water that they have to carry from the edge of the town half a mile away. The river water is…
“Untitled,” from The Book of Satires
Everyone loved . . . it was a plague
of infatuation, of kisses;
But the people soon became quiet,
the mothers were already nursing.
The drum of youth was laid
in the corner, and the…
A Report on the Community of Isfahan
In response to questions put by the correspondent of the journal Der Israelit of Mayence to the (Chief) Rabbi of the Jewish community of Isfahan concerning the situation of that community, the (Chief…
Among the Breslover Hasidim
If a visitor to Berditchev wishes to hear a typical Jewish melody, let him listen to Reb Nisson Belzer’s protégé. If it is Berditchever Chassidic song he desires, he should go to the Karliner shtibel…
From the Fair
4.
There are faces that God created to enchant you at first glance. Adore me, the face proclaims, and you adore it without knowing…
Chart of Gems from A Popular Treatise on Gems
This chart displaying the colors of gems and minerals is from A Popular Treatise on Gems and Minerals by Lewis Feuchtwanger, a German Jewish immigrant to the United States, a doctor who was also well…
The Benefits of Degeneracy
One of the most widespread concerns among the intellectual classes of the present period is that of the decline of the race, and to remedy this decline they demand…
Antisemitism as a Group Phenomenon: An Essay in the Sociology of Judaeophobia
I.
It is necessary to remember that hatred is constantly in human society directed and discharged against persons who could not possibly have been guilty of causing it.…
Letter to Yehalel: On Creating a Yiddish (National) Newspaper
To the Poet Yehuda Leib Levin (“Yehalal”)Warsaw, Wednesday, Heshvan 5655, 1894Dear Sir and distinguished author,Recent years have shown us that the national movement is not merely failing to increase…
Second Letter from New York to Warsaw
Dear friend Aaron Zeitlin,
You write (in Globus, issue 4) that to fight against the truly leftist—or, as you express it, “against the few who scream ‘impure’ [tomeh] sincerely”—is perhaps futile…
The Russian Jew in America
The Jewish population in the United States has grown from a quarter of a million to about one million. Scarcely a large American town but has some Russo-Jewish names in its directory, with an educated…
The Jews of Soviet Russia
[ . . . ] [T]here was a lecture in the big union hall on the topic of Soviet food policy. The wife of our protagonist also wanted to go and listen. You didn’t…