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.
A History of the Jewish Labor Movement in Russia
During the nineteenth century the lives of Jews in Russia underwent enormous changes. In pre-reform times most Jews lived in villages and small towns. Most were engaged in trade and…
Kiddush Ha-Shem
[ . . . ] From the other side of the fence was heard a murmur of Jewish voices as of people praying aloud. On a carpet before the door of the courtyard sat Murad Khan, and…
Blood
The train pulls up to the platform, steaming and boiling like a samovar.
Lazar is standing on the platform—short, glowing, joyful—waving his dirty handkerchief at the cars.
The train is on its way to…
Earth
Mordecai walked home from the village on the path that bordered the forest. All the talk of the elders in the village chief’s house had intoxicated him more than the strongest whiskey. Under his…
A Letter to Feffer
From other friends—poets, creators,
who are dear to me always,
I step away today,
Feffer,
and turn to you!
The battles still rage
on our literary planet
but it’s time to consider
the creative…
Two Fatherlands
O, if through thy eyes, like through sea waves,
My love could sail like a ship,
Long ago with full sails I would have boldly
Struck to your heart, like to the Holy Land.
If you light up for me in…
Yom HaKippurim
Do you know who turns and returns?
Do you know the meaning of Atonement?
Do you know who watched for you by night,
Late, and in the early morning light?
Do you know who verges on Atonement?
Do you…
Bolted Room
Dark, bolted room.
Thick air soaked with fear and danger.
Fabius Lind—eye to eye
With a bewildering woman.
Fabius Lind is small and trembling,
The woman is big and growing—and pouring out
Odors of a…
Encyclopedia of the Łódź Ghetto
A group of people living together under extreme coercive conditions without the conscious intent of forming a community of common fate created forms that were only possible on the basis of the ghetto…
Call to Arms
Vilna ghetto partisan leader Abba Kovner publicly predicted the Final Solution weeks before the Wannsee conference finalized the Nazis’ plans to systematically murder millions of Jews.