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.
I Did Not Interview the Dead
A few days before the surrender of Germany, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, sent out a call to American newspaper editors which may be…
Reflections on the Jewish Question
In describing the psychology of what he calls the “inauthentic Jew” among Gentiles, Sartre does not distinguish between the psychology of what I call the “inauthentic” Jew—the Jew who desires, so to…
Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement
Social Activities and Ethnic Group Maintenance
One other concept in addition to the compromise with secularism is required before the problem under study will become entirely clear. This is the status…
Of Change and Adaptation in Judaism
Midrash [ . . . ] is not mere reference to the past: it is the enlistment of the past in the service of the present. Even more specifically, it is a reinsertion into the present of the original divine…
Toward a New Yiddish
[ . . . ] It seems to me we are ready to rethink ourselves in America now; to preserve ourselves by a new culture-making.
Now you will say that this is a vast and stupid contradiction following all I…
A Child of the Century
The Readers Digest Magazine broke the American silence attending the massacre of the Jews in February, 1943. It printed my article called “Remember Us,” based on Dr. [Hayim] Greenberg’s data. Reading…
A Memorial Synagogue
The Painter had a different personality. A tiny Polish Jew, he was famous as a creator of wonderful whimsical animals. He said:
“For my part I wanted to use stained glass. But the architect says we…
Eli, the Fanatic
Inside the house they took their seats. Though it was lighter than a few evenings before, a bulb or two would have helped. Eli had to hold his briefcase towards the window for the last gleamings. He…
To Be a Jew
Being a Jew means running forever to God
even if you are His betrayer,
means expecting to hear any day,
even if you are a nay sayer,
the blare of Messiah’s horn;
means, even if you wish to,
you…
Passover
I set my table with metaphor:
the curling parsley—green sign nailed to the doors
of God’s underground; salt of desert and eyes;
the roasted shank bone of a Pascal lamb,
relic of sacrifice and…
The Education of the Heart
Warrenton, North Carolina
U.S. of America
August 7th, 1815
A young American lady who has long felt towards Miss Edgeworth those sentiments of respect and admiration which superior talents exerted in…
Letters and Diary
The negro movement is still a most vexatious and mischievous one, and its effects are painfully felt in every Southern household. This morning Cy came to high words with George and…