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.
Farewell Leicester Square
“Alec,” she said meekly, “you’re wearing out my carpet.”
He stopped. “Pardon?”
“Why the Man of Destiny act?” she asked.
He stared at her uncomprehending.
She put her hand on his arm and shook him. “Oh…
Ten Commandments
My grandfather’s kinsman, a Jew who tamed bears,
Performed in the market towns;
By day his beast was confined in chains;
At night, they danced under the stars.
Nicknamed “Ten Commandments,” the man…
Vilna
Vilna, my great matriarch, an established Jewish city,
Jerusalem of the Exile, an ancient nation’s consolation in the north!
This [poem] is your patched kerchief, like the roof of the old synagogue,…
Buy Cigarettes!
Cigarettes! Cigarettes!
My voice rings through the streets
With eyes overcast, cloudy—
Buy! Buy! Buy!
Hunting foxes—Cossacks ride—
With horseshoes like scythes—
And cut down sounds like sheaves:
Buy…
Self-Portrait
When the cool, colorful, gentile Sundays come,
both sit—Valenti, the watchman from my courtyard
and his pock-marked, redmouthed, piggish old lady
back-to-back on a wooden bench.
Both of them gaze…
I Am . . .
I am Mani Leyb, whose name is sung—
In Brownsville, Yehupets, and farther, they know it:
Among cobblers, a splendid cobbler; among
Poetical circles, a splendid poet.
A boy straining over the…
Russia: Anno 1905
A Young Jew. The weed of their hatred which has grown so tall
now turns towards us many heads,
many pointed petals and leaves;
what did they whisper to each other before the ikons,
and smile at over…
Bottoms
To be or not to be—that’s not the question.
Sense or nonsense—that’s my obsession.
For too long, Divine reckoning
has shredded human thinking.
The sum total of justice is a round number:
bright…
Jud’ Süss Oppenheimer on His First Visit with Professor Sigmund Freud
That’s you—the Eternal Jew.
Of Esau’s lullaby, of Gentile legend.
And I am your nephew—Jud’ Süss Oppenheimer.
You, seer, who can see far, see clear, see through,
You may say that I—am not I,
That one…
First Proclamation: 26 May 1941
A fire is now sweeping over the whole Old World, threatening to annihilate, heaven forbid, more than two-thirds of the Jewish people. Nobody can guarantee that the fire, heaven…
Letter to the Art Editor of the New York Times
June 7, 1943
Mr. Edward Alden Jewell
Art Editor
New York Times
229 West 43 Street
New York, N.Y.
Dear Mr. Jewell:
To the artist, the workings of the critical mind is one of life’s mysteries. That is…