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.
Huppah
This glimpse into an eighteenth-century German Jewish marriage ceremony offers an opportunity to consider how gender roles have changed for this vital ritual.
Pages from My Life
[ . . . ] In time, I lost my shyness. I became a “big shot” in one of the Am Olam groups. In our debates it became clear to me that it was still a beautiful idea to start colonies in which we…
A History of the Jewish Labor Movement in Russia
During the nineteenth century the lives of Jews in Russia underwent enormous changes. In pre-reform times most Jews lived in villages and small towns. Most were engaged in trade and…
A Letter to Feffer
From other friends—poets, creators,
who are dear to me always,
I step away today,
Feffer,
and turn to you!
The battles still rage
on our literary planet
but it’s time to consider
the creative…
East End My Cradle
Anti-Semitism in my infancy, had its compensations, for being confined practically to children (I speak of anti-Semitism not as a subjective attitude but in its…
To My Friends
God’s grace has surely been overabundant.
Riches were mine. Hardly a day would pass
When human sympathy did not alight on me
Like manna from the sky.
I cupped my slender fingers to receive it
Ironic…
The Jewish Object: A Shopper’s Report
In the new religious revival, the theologians and philosophers have it easy; they can battle about the nature of revelation endlessly in the pages of Commentary. Parents and householders, on the other…