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.
Memoirs of a Bootlegger’s Son
“I have a partner for the Point St Charles business,” said Pa.
“A partner! Why a partner?” said Aunt Julia. “Why are you afraid to do anything by yourself? And who is this partner?”
“Henoch,” he told…
A Tale of Three Wishes
It was quite an adventure. The night was moonless and cool. The children had heard that demons lurk outside, ready to attack those who dare to go out on a dark night. There was also talk of corpses…
The Devil’s Arithmetic
“That is my daughter’s dress you are wearing, Chaya Abramowicz. My Chaya. I brought it as a present for her in Lublin.”
“Chaya,” Hannah said.
“The same name, too. God is good. Your name means life.”…
Peacock Thanksgiving
An imaginary Thanksgiving dinner attended by the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln, the Statue of Liberty, George Washington, a Halloween witch, and a strutting peacock. A version of this…
Musicians in a Relief from Nineveh
Depicted in a relief from Sennacherib’s Palace in Nineveh, these musicians, followed by an Assyrian soldier, hold stringed instruments against their chests, plucking the strings as they walk. Dressed…
Evening in Basel
You won’t find the restaurant in the guidebooks, which is a pity. The owner—he was tall and wearing a sport jacket—greeted us at the door. Our table was waiting in the corner.
“And the food is quite…
Elephantine Letter (Request about the Rebuilding of the Elephantine Temple)
Elephantine letter, dated to year 17 of King Darius II (November 25, 407 BCE). See Request about the Rebuilding of the Elephantine Temple) and Darius and Xerxes, Kings of Persia. The letter is…
Why I Would Rather Not Be a Jew—and If I Must, Then Rather Not in Germany
When it came time for me to start school, my mother went to the director of the Wilhelm Pieck School in Katowice, Poland, where we were living then, to register me. My sister, nine years my senior…
The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949
In the course of 1948 and the first half of 1949, a number of processes definitively changed the physical and demographic face of Palestine. Taken collectively, they steadily rendered…
The Jews of the Republic: A Political History of State Jews in France from Gambetta to Vichy
In their glory days during the Renaissance, the king’s fools occupied a privileged place at court: dressed in sumptuous garments comparable in every detail to those of the kingdom’s great, in scarlet…
Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment
History will record that as the twentieth century drew to a close, American Jews were facing a political crisis unprecedented in its scope and nature. For the first time in their three and a half…
Hereditary Victimhood: The Holocaust’s Life as a Ghost
Half a century has passed since the victory of the Allied troops put an abrupt end to Hitler’s “final solution of the Jewish question”—but the memory of the Holocaust goes on polluting the world of…