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.
Patrimony: A True Story
The bathroom looked as though some spiteful thug had left his calling card after having robbed the house. As my father was tended to and he was what counted, I would just as soon have nailed the door…
My Grandmother, the Censor
There are two things I ought to make clear. First, almost as soon as she starts telling me about her career (as we wade through the sleet from the bus stop to the market), my grandmother declares that…
From Baghdad to Brooklyn: Growing Up in a Jewish-Arabic Family in Mid-Century America
My mother often sent me shopping to 18th Avenue (not a far distance, but for a kid it was unfamiliar territory), the district of Middle Eastern groceries, whose shopkeepers were…
The Return
Gradually we learned these things: The government of Sudan could not admit to helping Jews. Sudan, after all, was a friend of the other Arab nations, and there is fighting between Arabs and Jews…
To Jerusalem and Back
Before I left Chicago, the art critic Harold Rosenberg said to me, “Going to Jerusalem? And wondering whether people will talk freely? You’ve got to be kidding, they’ll talk your head off.” He spoke…
Fringe or Tassel
This fringe from Kuntillet Ajrud, knotted from undyed linen threads, could be the fringe (tzitzit) that Israelites are commanded to wear on the corners of their garments, as indicated in Numbers 15:37…
The Minsk Theory of Krypton: Jerry Siegel (1914-1996)
“Up in the sky! It’s a bird!
It’s a plane! It’s…Superman!”
Oh, he was a giant back then. And he may have been a touch innocent, even primitive, but he was unique. One of a kind. And he was like an…
Lyre Player
This detail appears on the right side of a pithos (storage jar) from Kuntillet Ajrud. The seated figure plays a lyre held away from the body. There seem to be four strings, oriented vertically…
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…
Jewish Identities in Poland
How many Jews are there in Poland? This seems a simple and reasonable question, but the answer depends to a great degree on who is asking whom, when, and why. This should not be surprising: in Poland…