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.
Blood from the Sky
The only garden left in our walled-up town was the old cemetery, whose earliest graves dated back to the thirteenth century. It was densely overgrown. Picking one’s way to its remoter corners meant…
Bread for the Departed
He felt a gnawing sensation. He knew it was hunger. Nothing in his mouth since morning except for those slops, the slops from the Judenrat kitchen, a watery soup that was almost free, just fifty…
I Do Not Feel at Home Here
I went to see to my sister in Berlin.
She wants me to consider moving in.
Her husband’s passed away now, a schlemiel,
He left her too much money in his will.
Her residence is filled with precious…
A Convoy from the Village
He remembers well how for the first time in his life he tried to cross the big street in Baghdad. With one hand his mother held onto him and with the other she held her long and wide cape, looked…
The Zulu and the Zeide
Harry was the only person who knew that he and his father had quarrelled shortly before the accident that ended the old man’s life took place; this was something that Harry was to keep secret for the…
Musicians and Watchmakers
“Act dumb,” Otilia advised me. “Change the subject.” To help me understand what she meant, she illustrated by relating a conversation she had had with a neighbor. It was December, when a great deal of…
The Jews in Polish Culture
In every caste system the lower caste occupies a marginal position vis-à-vis the upper caste. The Jews were a marginal element to the Polish nobility. The margin was not isolated, for the Jews could…
From the Old Marketplace
Benjamin came back with the same suitcase and the same few sets of underwear he had left with for Germany. He brought back everything—his illness included. The only thing he didn’t bring back were his…
The Fifth Season
Pinkie:[Jumping up] Johnny, did you ever hear of The Marshall Plan? The Five Year Plan? The Morris Plan? Now listen to the Pincus Plan! Let’s give up the business!Johnny:[With a quiet intensity, as he…
Fiddler on the Roof
The exterior of Tevye’s house. A Fiddler is seated on the roof, playing. Tevye is outside the house.Tevye:A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little village of Anatevka, you…
Kaddish: Hymmnn
O mother
what have I left out
O mother
what have I forgotten
O mother
farewell
with a long black shoe
farewell
with Communist Party and a broken stocking
farewell
with six dark hairs on the wen of…
Solomon Maimon: An Autobiography
I was sent to school at Iwenez, about fifteen miles from our abode, and here I began to study Talmud. The study of the Talmud is the chief object of a learned education among our people. Riches…