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.
Epitaphs
I have set this stone as a weight, not as a memorial, over my wife’s grave, lest (God forbid!) she rise from the dead and come back home.
Shilte ha-giborim (Shields of the Mighty)
The kinnor, called in a foreign tongue arpa (harp), is a wooden instrument made in the likeness of a wide-open entrance without their being doors on it, and its upper threshold is broad and its lower…
The Book of Abraham
The ten years that followed the arrival of Abraham and Beatrice in Lublin were peaceful and therefore happy, thanks to the Almighty, blessed be He. Abraham and Kalonymos gradually improved the print…
Harlem Holocaust
But all this came to an end one night. In almost every one of his novels, Warszawski retells the scene in the winter of 1944 when he came home at three o’clock in the morning, after a night of dancing…
Happy Times, Brittle World
Leo was planning to ask his father for money to get his car fixed, perhaps as a birthday present, even though he was sure his parents already had a present for him. Since the family’s return to Vienna…
Ghost Stories
Superimposed upon my face in the mirror is my mother’s. I am about to comb my hair, but here she is, brushing hers, her thick, wavy, white hair.
We quarrelled about hair.
“D…
San Remo Drive
Would you state your name for the record? a voice intoned.
Even before our father could reply, Bartie said, “Look, it’s Daddy.”
“Sure enough,” said Arthur. “It’s Mister Norman. On the television from…
Nokh Aushvits (After Auschwitz)
the poem is ugly & they make it uglier
wherein the power resides
that duncan did—or didn’t—understand
when listening that evening to the other poet read
he said “that was pure ugliness” & oh it was
i…
Impaled Corpses at Lachish
Impaled corpses at Lachish, detail from Assyrian relief in the Nineveh palace of Sennacherib (reigned 705–681 BCE), depicting the conquest of Lachish in 701 BCE. For the full relief see Conquest of…
Departures
I wasn’t a very political adolescent. I had grown up surrounded by unexplained cautions, by ellipses, and all these silences had sealed off the public world, so that I didn’t really believe in it…
Model Shrine from Khirbet Keiyafa
This limestone model of a shrine, around 8 inches wide, 10 inches long, and 14 inches high (20 cm × 25 cm × 35 cm), was painted red. The façade features a triple-recessed door frame, above which is a…