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.
Jewish Money in Everyday Life, Cultural History and Folklore: A Lexicological Study
The author is not among those who adhere to the doctrine that “money talks.” Knowledge talks, conscience talks, but money is merely counted—more by some, less by others. If the author…
Tradition and Revolt in Yiddish Poetry
As Yiddish poetry grew more modern, even modernistic, as it grew freer in rhythm, subtler in tonality, more artful and sophisticated in imagery, it also grew more Jewish—I was almost going to say more…
Understanding Genesis
The connection between Creation and the Flood is a very real one in biblical theology, especially in the biblical interpretation of human history. Reference has already been made to…
Making It
Now whatever else may be involved in a nondeliberate change of accent, one thing is clear: it bespeaks a very high degree of detachment from the ethos of one’s immediate surroundings. It is…
The Adventures of Augie March
I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted…
I Am in Babylon Dying
The bell pursues me. It is time to die.
It is the hour when no man works. I feel
My time fill up with leaves like a dry well
With many autumns over it, leaves that I
Leave to sigh in the ears of my…
Grandfather Is Facing Death
Not as if it were an accident,
not as if he were leaving Prague and coming to Havana,
eight years later bringing Mama,
to put her behind the cash register,
instill certain principles,
give her little…
Letter from Rebecca Samuel to Her Parents
Dear Parents:
I hope my letter will ease your mind. You can now be reassured and send me one of the family to Charleston, South Carolina. This is the place to which, with God’s help, we will go after…
The Wondrous Tale of Alroy
And now for my style. I must frankly confess that I have invented a new one. I am conscious of the hazard of such innovation, but I have not adopted my system without long meditation, and a…
The Headband
Anyone familiar with our Russian Poland knows what Jews mean by a small shtetl, a little town.
A small shtetl has a few small cabins, and a fair every other Sunday. The Jews deal in liquor, grain…
Sefer luḥot edut (Tablets of Testimony)
For it is not against me that these men have sinned, for what am I and what is my life? My days have passed like a transient shadow, and fly away as does a dream—like a dream upon…