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.
Model Bed
Since chairs and beds were valuable items and not found in average homes (people usually sat on the floor and slept on mats), it is possible that terra-cotta models like this one from Lachish…
Hard Love
She is sitting silently. Zvi looks out the window and lights a cigarette.
Hannah:I don’t think smoke’s very good for the baby…
Zvi:Sorry. (He puts the cigarette out.)
Hannah:I don’t…
The Holocaust and the Vicissitudes of Jewish Identity
It appears rather strange that Jewish intellectuals, more than three decades after World War II, feel called upon now more than ever before to articulate for West Germans what it has meant and means…
On the Place: Israeli Anthropology
The Israeli existence is new and experimental. Israelism comes from Zionism, based on the idea of the Jewish people’s return to its place. Israel is a Jewish place. Use of the term Jewish in…
The Other and Almost the Same
What, exactly, has the argument been about—apart from the words themselves? Have the Jews and the blacks been fighting all this time over political spoils? Not especially. Over economic interests…
Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History
In 1913 a Jewish girls’ school in Vilna called Yehudiyah, which provided supplementary education for girls aged seven to eighteen, published a publicity pamphlet in Yiddish…
Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur Survival Kit
“…but Rabbi, even if I can read some of the prayers I still don’t understand what I’m saying.… To tell you the truth I’d rather take a quiet reflective walk in the park this…
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…