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.
The History of Jewish Education and Culture in France and Germany from the Expulsion of French Jewry to the Enlightenment
The behavior of the Jews in most places generally follows the behavior of the [local] Christians—(Sefer ḥasidim [Book of the Pious, 13th century] § 1106)
The present volume is a continuation…
On the Gathering of the Agadah
The written Hebrew agadah [lore and legends transmitted in rabbinic texts] is the primary literary form that was dominant for several centuries in the world of unbounded folk and individual creation…
Yiddish Proverbs and Idioms
Some of the proverbs I have collected appeared previously in the yearbook Der hoyz-fraynd published by M. Spektor in Warsaw (1888–1889). The collection I am now presenting to the reader as…
Emunas tsadikim (Faith of the Tsadikim)
It is a work that contains two hundred precious and wondrous stories, full of ethical [edification] and [inspiring] fear of the Lord, sweeter than honey, bringing joy to oppressed hearts and souls…
A Night in the Old Marketplace
[Curtain]Narrator [entering and about to speak when he hears voices behind the scrim. Walking over, he peers through an opening in it]:How they weep, how they mourn,The wind-borne dead!No new…
Two Martyrs
For four hours I sat engrossed while old Gershon Falk told his story, feeling all the while as though I were listening to a fantastic saga—as though I were in the presence of one from another time…
The Enemy at His Pleasure: A Journey through the Jewish Pale of Settlement during World War I
Before the war Bloyne was a rich and elegant Jewish town: wide streets, a large municipal park, several monuments, many tall buildings, large stores. But when the war came through, the town was…
The Dybbuk
[ . . . ] Reb Azrielke:God’s world is great and holy. The holiest land in the world is the Land of Israel. In the Land of Israel the holiest city is Jerusalem. In Jerusalem the holiest place was the…
Manifesto and Two Poems to Marcel Janco
Note 18 about ArtArt today is the only thing constructed, an end in itself, about which no more need be said, such richness vitality meaning wisdom: to understand to see.To describe a flower—poetry…
The Dark Ages Are Looming!
The Dark Ages are looming. Do you hear, feel it, person of feeling,
The whisper of the dust slowly creeping, the distant smell of Sulphur?—
And that anguish fading in the air, the heart and the…