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.
Jud’ Süss Oppenheimer on His First Visit with Professor Sigmund Freud
That’s you—the Eternal Jew.
Of Esau’s lullaby, of Gentile legend.
And I am your nephew—Jud’ Süss Oppenheimer.
You, seer, who can see far, see clear, see through,
You may say that I—am not I,
That one…
The Book of Valor
This book seeks to unfold before the reader the scroll of Jewish valor, in both Israel and the diaspora, from the destruction of the Hebrew state to the harbingers of the renaissance of the…
First Proclamation: 26 May 1941
A fire is now sweeping over the whole Old World, threatening to annihilate, heaven forbid, more than two-thirds of the Jewish people. Nobody can guarantee that the fire, heaven…
Corner of the Field
After a long stay in the city, I was glad to go out, to travel as far as the Sharon, full of eagerness for fields, colors, green light. But to my misfortune, I fell into a crowded bus, crammed…
Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages
This book is intended as a description of a “traditional society”—that is, a society that saw itself as based upon a body of knowledge and a set of values handed down to…
Transfiguration
In history class
I draw a Latin-American moustache
On Titus Aspasianus;
Miriam, who under her flannel shirt
Is beginning to show development,
Is making vulgar contours
Onto the sculpture of his bust…
The Vigil
This is a night of vigil for me,
in the shudder of my soul
I shall conceal
the secret of my youth.
I shall stand on guard:
No sleep nor slumber!
And in just one moment
the veil was taken away.
A…
Paraphrase
The Bible tells us that from the heights
Moses blessed the children of Israel,
showing them God’s Promised Land,
where Moses himself never entered.
Like ships passing by when land is in sight
so…
The Blessing of Assimilation in Jewish History
I trust that none of my remarks will be understood to say that assimilation is not now, or has not always been, a great threat to the Jewish group. In a sense, the problem of assimilation is as old as…
Nicodemus
I went under cover of night
By back streets and alleyways,
Not as one secret and ashamed
But with a natural discretion.
I passed by a boy and a girl
Embraced against the white wall
In parts of…
Donna Clara
In the evening through her garden
Wanders the Alcalde’s daughter;
Festal sounds of drum and trumpet
Ring out hither from the castle.
“I am weary of the dances,
Honeyed words of adulation
From the…
Sermon of Ethical Rebuke Preached . . . during the Penitential Period Preceding the New Year’s Day, 5505 [1744], to the Congregation of Metz
The prophet Hosea cried out: Come, let us turn back to the Lord; He attacked, and He can heal us; He wounded, and He can bind us up. In two days He will make us whole again; on the third day He will…