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.
Responsum: On Civil Marriage
I set the Lord before me always. Karcag [Hungary], eve of the holy Sabbath, the week of [the reading of] Koraḥ, 5659 [June, 1899]. Abundant blessings and rejoicings to my dear friend, the eminent…
Letter on Education
With the grace of God, Friday, before the Shabbat of the reading of Noah, 5672 [1911].
To our fellow Hasidim (in the city of Turov),
My stomach turned and my ears burned on hearing the terrible news…
1919
Lately, there’s no trace left
Of Yankl, son of Yitskhok,
But for a tiny round dot
That rolls crazily through the streets
With hooked-on, clumsy limbs.
The lord-above surrounded
The whole world with…
A Bintel Brief
Dear Editor,I am one of those unfortunate girls thrown by fate into a dark and dismal shop, and I need your counsel.Along with my parents, sisters and brothers, I came from Russian Poland where I had…
Masadah
On an autumn night, on a bed of sorrows, far from home and shattered hearth,
My mother died;
A last tear froze in her eyes as she gasped a dying blessing
To me, her son, setting forth…
Who Is Vildman the Wrestler?
Among the wrestlers competing in the current tournament in the Panorama [Building] on Karowa Street, fighting for the 1912 Polish Championship, is a Jew called Vildman.He has become quite famous, in…
The Jewish Woman
I am a stranger.
Since no one dares approach me
I would be girded with towers
That wear their steep and stone-gray caps
Aloft in clouds.
The brazen key you will not find
That locks the musty…
Lullaby
Hush little baby. Forty-six years now
the night has rocked itself in my empty cradle
Now a gray head is rocked to sleep with the same tune:
Standing at the cradle’s head
No angel with two white wings…
Goyim in the Ghetto
There’s a folk saying: “The way it goes with the Christians, so it goes with the Jews.” Many concessions were made to the goyim, especially in matters concerning the ghetto. The guards at the ghetto…
Heart of a Wife: The Diary of a Southern Jewish Woman
D-Day at last. The invasion started about 1 a.m., and I have been listening to the radio since 8. My first reaction, and I’m sure everyone else’s—“Thank God, and God keep…
Suite Française
Madame Perrin told them that her son had died a hero’s death in Normandy as the Germans advanced; she had received permission to visit his grave. She complained at great length about the cost of this…
How?
How and with what will you fill
Your cup on the day you’re free?
Will you in your joy still
Hear the scream of the past
Where the skulls of chained days
Clot in bottomless pits?
Searching…