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.
We Speak and Write This Language against Our Will
Dear Vara of my soul,
Wherever it may be, I am always hit in the face by a pet peeve, some vexation and angst, due to the misbehavior of certain of our women who still do not know whether they are in…
Those Ancient Lands, Being a Journey to Palestine
I cannot linger in Egypt. They that came before me tarried too long. I have had the taste on my tongue and the dead air in my nostrils. Enough. That will serve.
Zagazig…
Ghetto and Emancipation
The history of the Jews in the last century and a half has turned about one central fact: that of Emancipation. But what has Emancipation really meant to the Jew? The generally accepted view has it…
Some Aspects of Chabad Chassidism
As in the case of Israel and the Torah, so in the case of G-d there are the apparent or conceivable attributes, and the hidden or inconceivable attributes.What is conceivable of the Divine Being is…
The Archbishop
While the townsfolk knew that an archbishop was coming, no one in Skalle [Skala, today Ukraine] made a big fuss about the news. It was only when pine gates were set up at the entrance that people…
Herr Wendriner Makes a Phone Call
On the day of Walter Rathenau’s funeral in 1922, all mail and telephone service in Germany was suspended between 2:00 and 2:10 pm
“If he won’t honor our invoice, I’ll simply give him a buzz. Put the…
In Opposite Directions
They would run into each other twice a day: early in the morning, going to work; and in the evening, coming back. They would see one another on the same sidewalk, but they were headed in opposite…
Cinnamon Shops
At the time of the shortest, sleepy winter days, edged on both sides with the furry dusk of mornings and evenings, when the city reached out ever deeper into the labyrinth of winter nights, and was…
A Family Album
Worn and torn by many fingers
It stands on the bedroom dresser,
Resting back against its single cardboard buttress,
(There were two)
The gilt clasp that bound it, loose and broken,
The beautiful…
Midos
A Jewish Wedding
Deep in fields the klezmers can be heard
Driving horses foaming at the mouth,
Relatives, both poor and rich, arrive
To Reb Sane’s daughter’s wedding feast. [ . . . ]
But from a…
Autobiography
Yesterday, I dumped on my son the following story:
That my father was a cyclops and, of course, had one eye,
That my fifteen brothers wanted to devour me,
So, I barely got myself out of their…