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.
Voices from a Time
I have no memory of that train trip, probably because there was nothing to remember. Our arrival in Vienna, on the other hand, impressed me. That city reminded me somewhat of Trieste, with its wide…
Multiculturalism versus Pluralism in Israel
Do Israelis have one culture or many cultures, or both one culture and many cultures? This question stems from three directions.
One direction is political. The Rabin assassination exposed a deep…
Ruling on the Kosher Lamp
I was asked by a resident in London concerning a portable electric lamp called “Kosher Lamp” which has a separate upper part which is made to direct the light or to cover it up altogether by twisting…
Pakhar’ (Ploughman)
Anatoly Kaplan’s painting Pakhar’ both commemorates the lost Jewish world of his childhood and reflects accepted Soviet iconography. The Yiddish inscription that frames the central image reads,…
A Lower East Side Vacation
“Green fields, fair forests, singing streams, pine-clad mountains, verdant vista—from the monotony of the city to the monotony of nature. I wanted a complete change, and so I went to the East Side of…
Leah Goldberg, Dira le-Haskir, cover
Dira le-haskir (Apartment for Rent), by the Hebrew-language poet and writer Leah Goldberg, became a bestselling children’s book in Israel soon after its publication in 1959. It tells the story of an…
Triumph des Jahres 1813 (Triumph of the Year 1813)
This caricature by the Henschel brothers celebrates the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in December 1813. This battle, the final in Napoleon’s “German Campaign,” is also known as the…
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious
The occurrence of self-criticism as a determinant may explain how it is that a number of the most apt jokes . . . have grown up on the soil of Jewish popular life. They are stories created by Jews and…
Introspectivism
With this collection, we intend to launch a particular trend in Yiddish poetry which has recently emerged in the works of a group of Yiddish poets. We have chosen to call it the Introspective…
Flesh and Spirit
In the early period of Jewish history there was a considerable party which took a materialistic view of the national life, in the sense that it had no ideal beyond that of making the State supreme at…
The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of Their Faith
The fiercest of all the conflicts between Pharisee and Sadducee concerned the doctrine of the resurrection, for in it the class conflict was most…
Notes in Response to the Zionist Cause
3 Shevat 5663 [January 31, 1903]
From all the Zionist essays emerge that which we see with our very eyes: their entire purpose and effort is to instill the supposition among Jews that the Torah and…