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.
Wedding Song: Memoirs of an Iranian Jewish Woman
If I had to pick one defining moment in my Iranian life, it would be 5:00 a.m. one Friday in the fall of 1968. I was fifteen. Normally I woke to the sounds of a peddler selling green almonds and fava…
Upon the Head of a Goat: A Childhood in Hungary, 1939-1944
In April 1942, after months of probing and letter writing, Mother and Mrs. Gerber received letters telling them that Father’s troop was in a Russian prison camp. However, no word came from either of…
The Fire’s Victims
Sheet music for “Die fire korbones” (The Fire's Victims). This song was written in memory of the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City, which broke out on March 25, 1911…
Don’t Be Selfish
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there lived a poor Jewish family in a small Lithuanian village. The oldest son, Borukh, had to go to the forest every day to gather dry twigs for…
A Story with a Hermit and a Little Goat
It was a bright and frosty winter night, moon and stars in the sky, snow, bedded snow, in the fields, and no sound from the paths, no horse and sleigh, no bell from the way, just field and peace…
Filke
Berl had no father. His mother was very poor and had to go to strangers to make money for bread. Berl used to stay at home alone, and waited for hours for his mother. He had no sisters or brothers, so…
The Talmud
We see that the categories of understanding the nation produced in its adolescence are a result of emotions developed in its childhood. According to our approach, we can conclude that the Talmud—which…
Hannukah Gelt
Can you guess, children, which is the best of all holidays? Hannukah, of course.
You don’t go to cheder for eight days in a row, you eat pancakes every day, spin your dreidel to your heart’s content…
Leaving Cheder
Adam Muszka likely painted this scene from memory. As a child, he had attended cheder, a traditional Jewish elementary school, in his native Piotrków Trybunalski, a Polish town of about 51,000…
Paper Cuts for Shavuot
Paper cuts were a distinctive Jewish folk art in Eastern Europe, where rural Poles and Ukrainians also practiced the craft. Jewish paper cuts had their own techniques and imagery and were used for…
Amulet for Falling Sickness
An amulet for a person with the falling sickness [epilepsy—Ed.]. He should wear it [the amulet] around his neck, and he should fast and ritually immerse, and it should be written in the first hour at…