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.
On Emancipation and Jewish Education
Throughout the duration of the exile of Israel, Jews worshiped God in awe, and from the time that freedom was granted to them and the exile of the body was made easier, the exile of the soul increased…
1919
Lately, there’s no trace left
Of Yankl, son of Yitskhok,
But for a tiny round dot
That rolls crazily through the streets
With hooked-on, clumsy limbs.
The lord-above surrounded
The whole world with…
Frightened Mothers Surround the Neighborhood: Tonsil Riots
A foolish, misunderstood order by the Board of Education about cutting out “mandlen” [tonsils] from children’s throats is interpreted to mean a command to slit childrens’ throats and causes a wild…
The Jewish Woman
I am a stranger.
Since no one dares approach me
I would be girded with towers
That wear their steep and stone-gray caps
Aloft in clouds.
The brazen key you will not find
That locks the musty…
Lullaby
Hush little baby. Forty-six years now
the night has rocked itself in my empty cradle
Now a gray head is rocked to sleep with the same tune:
Standing at the cradle’s head
No angel with two white wings…
Goyim in the Ghetto
There’s a folk saying: “The way it goes with the Christians, so it goes with the Jews.” Many concessions were made to the goyim, especially in matters concerning the ghetto. The guards at the ghetto…
Heart of a Wife: The Diary of a Southern Jewish Woman
D-Day at last. The invasion started about 1 a.m., and I have been listening to the radio since 8. My first reaction, and I’m sure everyone else’s—“Thank God, and God keep…
Suite Française
Madame Perrin told them that her son had died a hero’s death in Normandy as the Germans advanced; she had received permission to visit his grave. She complained at great length about the cost of this…
How?
How and with what will you fill
Your cup on the day you’re free?
Will you in your joy still
Hear the scream of the past
Where the skulls of chained days
Clot in bottomless pits?
Searching…
A Bowl of Raisins, or A Thousand and One Jokes
Jewish humor of recent generations, in all its manifestations—jokes, puns, witticisms, and anecdotes—has found patrons within Our Language [a Hebrew-language periodical] and already…
The Newly Arrived Men of Letters
The man of letters who cares about his links with the people—who is of the opinion that there is no backbone to his literary production except when his social source is present, typified by the…