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.
The Discreet Charm of Zionism
There are now 157 or 162 independent states in the world, both new and old. The vast majority of them are under the sway of oppressive regimes, slavery, mass-brainwashing, ruler-worship: in one way or…
The Explosion on Ahalan Street
The explosion was on the first day of the Passover vacation.The minimarket across from our house was already closed when suddenly a deafening bolt of thunder could be heard, rolling down the…
Under This Blazing Light
So what do storytellers do? The ones I like operate more or less like tribal witchdoctors.
Here is a little story for you. Nine thousand six hundred and six years ago, in a…
Israeli Blues
“Secular is a terrible word”; “secular is a word I don’t like,” “there is no such thing as a secular Jew”—these clichés are common among absolutely secular intellectuals when they discuss problems of…
Facing Reality: Lessons from Jeremiah, the Destruction of the Second Temple, and Bar Kochba’s Rebellion
Is the Jewish existence so hollow and frail that it took hundreds of thousands of human victims in order to consolidate it, as the claim that the Bar Kochba rebellion ensured our continuity would seem…
May Women Wear Tefillin?
A recent discussion of our question concludes as follows:
In conclusion, women are not permitted under any circumstances to wear tefillin. In view of the fact that the Rema, the…
Phat’hi’s Treasure
I stood outside the grocery, holding a shopping bag in one hand, and Phat’hi’s strange “letter” in the other. I looked at the drawings of the car, the clock, and the sign over…
Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture
Gathering the sources was a modern way of closing ranks, of reaffirming the essential unity of Jewish experience as one vale of tears through space and time. The harder the times, the more desperately…
Tin Soldiers on Jerusalem Beach
On a very hot summer’s day, at noon, I am in the kibbutz in which both my father, who died in 1972, and my brother-in-law, who was killed in the…