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.
The Essence of Judaism (Second Edition)
During the thousands of years of its history, Judaism has learned and experienced a good deal. In its people the commanding urge to think further, to struggle with ideas, has…
The Jewish Woman
The position of the Jewish woman in Germany today cannot be ascertained from understanding the present alone. A brief look at the recent and distant past—perhaps even the long-distant past—is…
Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of His Death
Some time ago it became known that Knut Hamsun was in the habit of expressing his views in an occasional letter to the editor of the local paper in the small town near which he…
A Shtetl Is Starving to Death
Not far from Łódź is a small town called Brzezhin. It has been a town of tailors from the beginning of time. When it was under Russian rule, Brzezhin was a center for manufacturing cheap clothes for…
Jews, Be Nice
The Jews are probably the only people in the world to whom it has ever been proposed that their historic destiny is—to be nice. This singular concept has played such an important role in…
Antisemitism as Folk Hysteria
To define the characteristics of antisemitism it is good to proceed on two fronts: i.e., to examine its development externally in a purely empirical manner and thereby find its…
“Americanization” and the Cultural Prospect
That the image of these United States as a “melting-pot” might be a delusion and its imputed harmony with democracy a snare was not an idea which, prior to the Great War, seemed even possible to…
Is There a Need for a World Sephardi Federation? A Debate by Jewish Delegates in Vienna
My brothers and teachers: for some years, since I was enlightened by the luminous erudition of our pious forefathers, the rabbis in Babylon and the wise writers from Spain, my attention…
Our Cultural Work
At the last council meeting of the Histadrut, the question of cultural work was on the agenda for the first time. This time it was impossible to discuss only the formal and technical aspects of our…
Manifesto
To the remnant whom Hashem calls Guardians of the Torah and Doers of His Word. May the Lord our God be with them and may they rise higher and higher our brethren guardians of the faith of israel! Our…
The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festival
Let us bless the source of lifethat brings forth bread from the earth.N’vareykh et eyn haḥayimhamotzi’ah léḥem min ha’áretz.Hear, O Israel…
Hatikva
In 1947, when Kurt Weill’s orchestral arrangement of Hatikva received its world premiere in New York, it was still—as it had been for decades—the anthem of the modern Zionist movement, expressing the…