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 Samson Game
Who among you, my little brothers, my dear children, has not played this game? We all know it, you might think so in your hearts, we do not need to talk about it. But I will lay this game out before…
The Golem
Dear readers! I am giving you a rare and precious treasure, which has hitherto been lying in a library for three hundred years. Jews have always been thinking and talking about this treasure…
The Circus Lady
I am a circus lady
And dance among the daggers
Set in the arena
With their points erect.
My swaying, lissome body
Avoids a death-by-falling,
Touching, barely touching the dagger blades.
Holding…
Memoirs of My People through a Thousand Years
The anthologist, like the historian and the novelist, is an autobiographer is disguise. He is driven into the jungles and watering places of literature by instinct as well as by design. The ultimate…
Answer to the Oyneg Shabes Questionnaire
. . . I head up the public-health service in the program to combat epidemics and also the hospital department. Besides, I also direct the medical board here in the ghetto, where over 800 doctors are…
The Tragedy of 1st and 2nd June, 1941 in the Capital of Iraq
Every Jew of our community well remembers these two sorrowful days during which cruel killings took place instead of seeing our way to enjoy them as they were the days of “visits festivals”…
From Foe to Friend
Before Talpiot was built the King of the Winds used to rule over the entire region: and all his ministers and servants, mighty and stubborn winds, dwelled there with him and blew over mountain and…
Focus
Mr. Finkelstein was still a young man, but as a Jew he was very old. He knew what was going on. He could hardly help knowing. Twice in the past three weeks, when he had come out of his house at six in…
We Polish Jews
“All right,” someone will say, “granted you are a Pole. But in that case, why ‘we jews’?” To which I answer: because of blood “Then racialism again?” No, not racialism at all. Quite the contrary.
Th…
The Escape
All that had happened to him lay behind him like a yawning abyss. There was a strange excitement for him in his adjustment, an intoxication beyond fear. His movements were untrammeled, and as a result…
We Left Slowly
We left slowly. The night was pale.
In the distance the lights flickered.
And you were all loveliness like your two eyes
With tears cupped in them.
The jackal howled as you went to the vineyard
You…