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 Voice of Yeshurun to the Hebrews
Brothers, the great necessity and the significant need for the publication of newspapers in [any] state are well known in all countries. It is common knowledge. And you will not find one opposing…
The Making of the Modern Jew
For a half-millennium the Jew, rejected by the world, had secluded himself within ghetto walls, unconcerned with what lay without. But the day came when the world…
Memories of the Meldar: An Ottoman Jew’s Early Education
Did you go to a meldar as a child? Have any of you been so lucky and blessed? I am sure that, seeing these two questions, you will all object that you had no idea what a meldar was and that you went…
Mekor Barukh—My Memoirs
In general, the power of the influence exerted by the Master, R. Mendele, on my revered father over many years since his return from (studying with) him, was very great. […
Book of My Life
[ . . . ] In the early autumn of 1918 we entered a new circle of Bolshevik hell, the period of mass Red Terror. The murder of Uritskii and…
Social Hygiene of the Jews
For Jews, social hygiene embraces the entire domain of religious laws and customs of Judaism on maintaining the purity and health of the body. These traditions partially, and certainly at their core…
The Rambam in True Perspective
In our national gallery—the gibbore ha-umah—there are three great Moseses: the law-giver of Mt. Sinai, Moses Ben Maimon of Cordova, and Moses Isserles of Cracow. Twice was the winged word coined:…
Repentance
Rabbi Ezekiel of Kozmir and his followers were great believers in the divine principle of joyousness.
Reb Ezekiel himself was a giant of a man, standing a full head above his Chasidic followers, and…
A Newspaper Report about Us
Did you know that The Jewish Voice almost became a defendant in a trial concerning the Press Act?
My fellow community members wanted to sue it.
Never have my fellow community members ever sued anyone…
The Dance of the Demons
Meanwhile Reb Zalman, all undeterred, was arranging a match for Deborah, and one evening he arrived with a brand new proposal, one that was—in these hard modern times—almost too good to…
God, Hear . . .
The night draws in around my eyes
Its ring of haze.
My pulse has sent my blood into a blaze
Though all about me a gray coldness lies.
O God, that I by living day
Should dream I’m dead,
Drink it in…