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.
Moses and Monotheism
IV.
Early trauma—defence—latency—outbreak of the neurosis—partial return of the repressed material: this was the formula we drew up for the development of a neurosis. Now I will invite the…
My Life
The leader and the soul of Iskra was Lenin. And although he was surrounded by a group of brilliant writers and first-class leaders (indeed, all enjoyed equal rights in a…
Born a Jew
A letter from Zuckerman, the commissioner, evidently written by an agitated hand. It had come from Brest Litovsk bringing the news of horror. He had been in Pinsk and…
The History of Jewish Social Aspirations in Russia in the Nineteenth Century
This book was submitted for publication two years ago.Considering that within the realm of Jewish history in nineteenth-century Russia there is no systematically consolidated…
Toward a Reconstruction of Judaism
For the first time in its career, Judaism is challenged by the Jew more vigorously even than by the Gentile. However anxious the modern Jew may be to remain a Jew, he finds himself today in a quandary…
Children of Loneliness
“Oh, Mother, can’t you use a fork?” exclaimed Rachel as Mrs. Ravinsky took the shell of the baked potato in her fingers and raised it to her watering mouth.
“Here, Teacherin mine, you want to learn…
Farewell Leicester Square
“Alec,” she said meekly, “you’re wearing out my carpet.”
He stopped. “Pardon?”
“Why the Man of Destiny act?” she asked.
He stared at her uncomprehending.
She put her hand on his arm and shook him. “Oh…
Ten Commandments
My grandfather’s kinsman, a Jew who tamed bears,
Performed in the market towns;
By day his beast was confined in chains;
At night, they danced under the stars.
Nicknamed “Ten Commandments,” the man…
Vilna
Vilna, my great matriarch, an established Jewish city,
Jerusalem of the Exile, an ancient nation’s consolation in the north!
This [poem] is your patched kerchief, like the roof of the old synagogue,…
Buy Cigarettes!
Cigarettes! Cigarettes!
My voice rings through the streets
With eyes overcast, cloudy—
Buy! Buy! Buy!
Hunting foxes—Cossacks ride—
With horseshoes like scythes—
And cut down sounds like sheaves:
Buy…
Self-Portrait
When the cool, colorful, gentile Sundays come,
both sit—Valenti, the watchman from my courtyard
and his pock-marked, redmouthed, piggish old lady
back-to-back on a wooden bench.
Both of them gaze…