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.
Behind God’s Back
It did not take long to apprehend the assassin. A woman who had been passing heard the shots, saw a car skid away, took down the number and gave it to the police and, within hours, a man had been…
Zohara’s Journey
I sometimes dream that I’m a prisoner. For days, years. I’m only free at night, for a few hours toward morning. During those hours I can walk around. But I don’t know where to go. All the people I…
Let the Survivors Check in First, Please!
“Shalom and good morning everyone, allow me to extend a warm and of course respectful welcome to you, our honored guests, on behalf of Viva Travel, on this Down Memory Lane package tour, including a…
Tomb of Cyrus
Tomb of Cyrus, King of Persia (reigned 559–530 BCE). The tomb stands in Cyrus’ capital, Pasargadae (near today’s Shiraz, Iran). See the Cyrus Cylinder for Cyrus’ role in the return of Judeans from…
The Golem’s Circle
Rabbi Eleazar opened the palm of his hand
and let the fertile, virgin earth escape
He took pure water from the mountain spring
recited the two hundred and twenty-one alphabetical combinations
and…
City Gate, Gezer
City gate, Gezer, Early Iron Age (1200–980 BCE). This gatehouse complex had benches for participants in legal procedures and other public affairs. In the book of Ruth, Boaz goes to the city gate in…
An Orphan in History: Retrieving a Jewish Legacy
In the spring of 1961, I flunked an exam that would have enabled me to write an honors thesis. In reality, it was a minor failure—I was spending most of my time at the Crimson building, where I was…
Volute Capital from Ramat Rahel Palace
The palm and the palmette are common iconographic elements in ancient Near Eastern art, appearing, for example, in ivory decoration (see Ivory and Bone Carvings and Engraved Seashells) and in Assyrian…
The Heavens and the Earth: A Self-Portrait of the 1948 Generation
The tale of the Generation of the Land is a sad tale. Reflecting about the source of the depression that the situation in Israel instills in me, I can only ascribe it to expressions of ethnocentric…
Local Notes
The Moshava of Pardes-Hannah is the place I come from, but since I left it, my eyes have been turned away from it, as if I couldn’t look at it. Until I went to the army, the Moshava was a whole place…