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.
Heavenly Torah: As Refracted through the Generations
The fact that at a crossroads in Jewish history two “fathers of the world” met, men who were to become trailblazers in religious philosophy, is of major importance. The…
Jewish Dreams and Nightmares
The case of Kafka, the acculturated Jew, shows how a man may feel his way into a body of collective history through his very consciousness of being outside it: Kafka brooded over the experience of the…
Passage from Home
Father glared; Willy smiled. Father sat erect, his skullcap square on his head; Willy slouched, all relaxed, his cap slung at an angle like a beret. One declaimed the Hebrew text, loudly…
Compulsion
We waited half through the night, with the news leaking out to us. The confessions were going well. The time was long because the state’s attorney was going over each fact, nailing down the evidence…
Mr. Sammler’s Planet
They went down in the elevator, the grey woman and Mr. Sammler, and through lower passages paved in speckled material, through tunnels, up and down ramps, past laboratories and supply rooms. Well…
The Ninth of Ab
August is flat and still, with ever-thickening green
Leaves, clipped in their richness; hoarse sighs in
the grass,
Moments of mowing, mark out the
lengthening summer. The ground
We children…
Ziprah Nunez’s Account of the Family Escape
On page 101, reference is made to the history of the Jews in this State. Since that part of the work was printed, M. M. Noah, Esquire, of New-York, has kindly favoured us with the following additional…
The Escape: A Tale of 1755
A moment of agonized suspense and Alvar Rodriguez stood at the window, the bar he had removed in his hand. He let down the string, to which Hassan’s now trembling hands secured the ladder and drew it…
On Hearing She Had Been Praised in the Journals
My soul sighs, fate brings only trouble.
My spirit was lifted, and I grew bold.
I heard a voice: ‘Your poem is gold.
Who has learned to sing like you, Rachel?’
My spirit in turn replies: I’ve lost…
Ethical Will
Grieve not at all on my departure for the Land of Israel (may it be built and established!). You gave me indeed a firm promise to that effect. And why should you be anxious? Many men travel years long…
Discourse Delivered at the Consecration of the Synagogue of the Hebrew Congregation Mickve Israel, in the City of Savannah, Georgia, 21 July 1820
Assembled as we are, to re-establish by commemoration, (2) the Congregation of this remnant or small portion of the house of Israel; your expectation of a brief sketch of our History, and particularly…
The Symptoms of the Time
By emphasizing religious activity, Judaism is completely tied to life and becomes the property of every individual Jew. A religion of pure ideas belongs primarily to the theologians; the masses who…