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.
Psalm 132
A song of ascents.
O Lord, remember in David’s favor
his extreme self-denial,
how he swore to the Lord,
vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob,
“I will not enter my house,
nor will I mount my bed,
I…
Yorkville Swastika
The Photo League was notable for the large number of women who participated in it; about one-third of its members were women. Vivian Cherry’s work was influential in shaping the style and iconography…
Messiah
From the silence of the night I heard a clamor,
Like the clank of chains of bondage, the sound of linked fetters
Jangling each other—
The heavens opened,
And suddenly a great flood of light burst…
In a Foreign World
And life on deck grows quiet. Silence spreads
And people, wrapped in coats, look out to sea.
And, here and there, a gleam, a glittering.
The ship moves quietly. Some fall asleep.
The night is…
A Messenger’s Coming to You Today
A messenger’s coming to you today.
I’m the one who sent him.
He’s bringing a bag of gifts.
Don’t bolt the door on him.
He’s bringing a bag of gifts.
I collected and watched them.
He’ll lay them at…
The Jew
Moses, from whose loins I sprung,
Lit by a lamp in his blood
Ten immutable rules, a moon
For mutable lampless men.
The blonde, the bronze, the ruddy,
With the same heaving blood,
Keep tide to the…
Homage to the Six Million
Few works by Louise Nevelson allude to Jewish themes. Homage to the Six Million is one of the exceptions. She said of her sculpture that she hoped it would create “a living presence of a people who…
Dreyfus
[Fabres alone]Fabres [Standing, reading the newspaper La Libre parole whose title appears in such big letters that it can be seen by the audience]:“Our information was confirmed in…
A Call to Collect Jewish Folk Songs
There is no need to provide evidence concerning the great value of folk songs when one wishes to study the history of a people—any people—and all it has undergone. Alongside the history books of each…
Faithful and Free: Collected Speeches and Lectures about Jews and Judaism
One may consider this work a sort of memorial book that captures the history of the Jews and Judaism in our century. It does not narrate stories but reports; it presents personages about whom I was…
A Voice from Balta
I will speak with my heart while my soul is faint, when the spirit of my understanding wanders through the recesses of my worries. My thoughts surely ask me: What is this? And why is this? What is…
The Jewish Character of Spinoza’s Teaching
Whoever reads Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, his letters, and even his Hebrew grammar, will recognize and avow that Spinoza was, relative to his times in Amsterdam, if not a great scholar…