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.
Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941–1968
Two months after liberation, people had stopped cheering and embracing. They were not giving away food and clothing anymore, but selling it on the black market. Those who had compromised their…
Everything Will Remember
Everything will remember
That I was here.
The ships will be the color
Of my clothing,
The birds will use my voice for singing,
The fisherman on the rock
Will ponder my poem,
The river
Will follow my…
A Jewish Peddler’s Diary
On the eve of the New Year I found myself with a new career before me. What kind of career? “I don’t know”—the American’s customary reply to every difficult question. . . . I was in New York, trying…
Zikhronot u-masa‘ot (Memoir and Journeys)
Those who seized the youths to put them into the army in the city where I was born, desired to have, as a residence for themselves, a house adjacent to the one in which my father…
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…
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…
The Wanderings of the Little Blue Butterfly in Fairyland
Illustration from the children’s book The Wanderings of the Little Blue Butterfly in Fairyland, first published in Budapest, Hungary, in 1912.
Calendar for the Year 5665, an Intercalated Year
The Hebrew calendar uses a system of intercalation, adding an additional month to the calendar year to synchronize the regular twelve-month calendar with the moon, sun, and seasons. The Hebrew…