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.
Our Demands: A Ladino Socialist Manifesto
What are the demands of the organized proletariat on this day [May 1]?
Above all the eight-hour workday. With eight-hour days we would gain work for thousands of unemployed men; we would gain time to…
On Women’s Voting
. . . We believe that our outlook on social life in general is more refined and purer than that of contemporary civilized nations. Our family is sacred to us in a manner more profound than [is the…
Speech: On Jews and Nationalism
Are we always and in all circumstances united with our surroundings, so that only the synagogue, rather than society, attests to separation?
Do not believe that in such unity and cooperation I mean…
Feuilleton: On Varshavsky’s Jewish Folk Songs
What do we call folk songs? Of course, these are the songs sung by the people. The songs can either come from unknown authors of the ancient, forgotten past . . . or these can be recently written…
Assimilation or Polonization?
Assimilation, taken literally, means making things similar to each other, and in this concrete instance refers to a desire for the assimilation of Jews in terms of language, culture, and customs to…
The Hebrew Book
Literary-minded Jews have long been perplexed by a strange phenomenon. Our literature which is thousands of years old, comprises tens of thousands of volumes, and represents the many creative forces…
Sermon on B’nai Mitzvah Celebrations
A male child becomes obligated to observe the commandments at the age of thirteen years and one day. Therefore, on the first day of his fourteenth year, a father grasps his son in his hand and says,…
A Tale of Rebbe Yisroel of Ruzhin
Our master, the holy rabbi, told a tale of the Ba‘al Shem Tov (may his memory be for a blessing to the life of the world to come!). There was once a matter involving great danger to the human life of…
Jewboy
He sings in the courtyard, clad in rags
A small, poor chap, a crazed Jew.
People drive him away, God has muddled his wits
Ages and exile have confused his tongue
He wails and he dances, weeps and…
Holy Grandmothers in Jerusalem
Holy grandmothers in Jerusalem,
May your virtue protect me.
The smell of blossoms and blooming orchards
I suckled with my mother’s milk.
Feet soft as hands, fumbling
In the torrid sand,
And tousled…