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.
An Open Response to Dezső Szabó
Dear Sir, [ . . . ]
We can talk about a Jewish racial or religious sentiment, but this is in perfect harmony with the Jews’ Hungarian national sentiment, which is not a patriotic slogan but a very…
The Youth of Jewish Prague
What is this Jewish Prague that is so much talked about here? We don’t know it in a way that would allow us to define it or draw its image. But we know that it is a reality that lives in us and has an…
Our War Experience
This was the psychological state we were in when the war arrived. The war was not a political issue for us. We were thinking neither about the question of war guilt nor about a victorious outcome; we…
The Sense of Smell
The holy tongue is a language like no other. All other tongues exist only by agreement, each nation having agreed upon its language. But the holy tongue is the one…
Instruction, Law, and Nation: A Critical Historical Inquiry into the Essence of Judaism
Since Judaism is law, the doubts of the Jewish youth are not an evil, at least per se they are not an evil. If Judaism were only instruction, the doubts raised by the instruction would…
Bar Mitzvah Sermon: On Jewish Education and Secularization
[ . . . ] Some [Jewish] people have children who may be likened to seeds, others who can be likened to vegetables, and yet others, to thorns. When parents raise their children in the ways of Torah…
My Way to Palestine
Whatever happened to me on that day seemed to urge me to muster up all my courage and hope. When the ship approached the harbor of Jaffa, many people were there to meet us…
The Sermon
For a while there was quiet—a total, final quiet in the room. Then the chairman stirred, beetling his heavy eyebrows, and spoke with gruff, ironical severity: “Comrade Yudka, I call you to order! If…
In Sand and Water
In sand and in water
You will yet raise expectant eyes,
Or eyes
As indifferent as death to machine-gun bullets and borders on maps.
Together with you
Yet another sought to escape
(At long last to…
One of a City and Two of a Family
The book being presented to the reader represents a selection of a thousand autobiographies composed by Jewish children, survivors of the conflagration, tender children who lived for months and even…
Religious Praxis: The Meaning of Halakhah
Living in accordance with the Halakhah, demarcating a sphere of the sacred through halakhic practice—is this the ultimate end of the religious life? The answer is both yes and no. On the one hand…