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 Funeral’s Early...
In Jewish folklore the sight of a water carrier bearing one or two full pails is an omen of good fortune; empty pails foretell bad fortune. The funeral’s early, the concert is late.I go to both (such…
The Golem’s Circle
Rabbi Eleazar opened the palm of his hand
and let the fertile, virgin earth escape
He took pure water from the mountain spring
recited the two hundred and twenty-one alphabetical combinations
and…
Tefillin
In Jewish tradition, the command to “bind them [God’s words] as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead” is understood as requiring passages from the Torah to be written on…
An Orphan in History: Retrieving a Jewish Legacy
In the spring of 1961, I flunked an exam that would have enabled me to write an honors thesis. In reality, it was a minor failure—I was spending most of my time at the Crimson building, where I was…
Ashlar Masonry Wall in Samaria Acropolis
The masonry in the royal palace of Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom, is considered the finest example of ashlar masonry from the Iron Age. The blocks are cut so well that they fit together…
The Heavens and the Earth: A Self-Portrait of the 1948 Generation
The tale of the Generation of the Land is a sad tale. Reflecting about the source of the depression that the situation in Israel instills in me, I can only ascribe it to expressions of ethnocentric…
Local Notes
The Moshava of Pardes-Hannah is the place I come from, but since I left it, my eyes have been turned away from it, as if I couldn’t look at it. Until I went to the army, the Moshava was a whole place…
I’m Not Rappaport
Nat:Look at you! Look what you’ve become! Queen of the Condominiums, peasant skirts for two hundred dollars, betrayer of your namesake—Clara:Goddamn name—Nat:Clara Lemlich, who stood for something—Cla…
Coin with Ear
The image of an ear on this coin may symbolize God as the one who hears prayers, as in passages such as Psalm 34:16, 18, and Psalm 130:2. The image is paralleled on Egyptian stelas that depict…
Figures Looking over City Wall
These fragments of a mural from Kuntillet Ajrud show two human heads, facing left and looking out over their city’s wall, which is flanked by towers. The mural may have been part of a military scene…