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.
“Americanization” and the Cultural Prospect
That the image of these United States as a “meltingpot” might be a delusion and its imputed harmony with democracy a snare was not an idea which, prior to the Great War, seemed even possible to…
Jews, Be Nice
The Jews are probably the only people in the world to whom it has ever been proposed that their historic destiny is—to be nice. This singular concept has played such an important role in…
Five Mournful Years for Jewry
Five years have passed since that mournful 5th of March, which witnessed the so-called election of Hitler as Chancellor of the German Reich. It might long have been foreseen and perhaps even averted…
Notes of a Social Democrat
The time has come for me to touch upon the people of the Vilna leadership. When Iosif Mil was away and I joined it, the acknowledged leader was my acquaintance A[rkady] Kremer (“Aleksandr”). His…
My Life
[ . . . ] In the country as well as in the town, I lived in a petty-bourgeois environment where the principal effort was directed toward acquisition. In this respect, I cut myself off both from the…
Jewish Women in the Midwifery School of Vilna University
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, women did not participate in the free professions regularly because at that time institutes of higher education had not yet opened their doors to them. The…
Why Do the Heathen Rage?
The latest attempt to salvage poor shipwrecked Judaism in America is on. The Menorah Journal summoned the doughtiest intellectuals to this heroic task. These came highly equipped with trenchant pen…
Responsa of Achiezer
[ . . . ] During the Middle Ages and the decrees of the year 5408 [1648], when our brethren the children of Israel believed with real faith in the Almighty and in His…
Adoon’s Jealousy
His strong, coal-black hands crumpling and twisting his faded old hat, the thirty-year-old Adoons said in a quiet but firm voice to his employer, Mr. Waldman, the produce dealer,
“Baas, I’m finishing…
Man Overboard
[ . . . ] And the Lieutenant-Captain was seriously tired of other people’s passports, of never-ending family names, from Ivanov to Chavchavadze, and of registration.
The barrister has been…
Shayke
Once this was the heart of Warsaw—this labyrinth of sad narrow streets between tall tenement houses. Now this is a remote place, an ancient tumor on the body of the modern city, where its blood flows…
De Vriendt Goes Home
De Vriendt shut the door, but stayed with his forehead pressed against it; the strength had gone out of him. This Englishman knew. He knew the nature of his relation to…