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.
Book of Travels
The situation of Jews in the Soviet Union may well be the greatest of all the great wonders of the world. The history of Jews in tsarist Russia has been centuries of darkness…
Lecture: On Feminism and Suffrage
Ladies and Gentlemen:
The word “feminism” is interpreted in different ways. Some would grant [women] exaggerated rights. Others limit their demands to their simplest form without arriving at a proper…
The Future of American Jews
But a few years ago, before the outbreak of the world-wide European upheaval [World War I], no one even entertained the possibility that a center for the revelation and development of the Jewish…
Toward an Explanation of Our Ideology
Jewry, and religious Jewry in particular, has always attached prime importance to the rebuilding of Eretz Israel. The Hovevei Zion regarded it as a national duty; for the religious it was a divine…
Muscle Jewry
Two years ago, during a committee meeting at the Congress in Basle, I said: “We must think of creating once again a Jewry of muscles.”
Once again! For history is our witness that such a Jewry had…
Letter to the Editor: On Kashering for Passover
Since time immemorial Jews in every city would customarily kasher the dishes they use throughout the year for Passover—glassware by soaking, and pots by heating them to a very high temperature. But a…
In the Golden Land
Would you, mama, believe if I told
That everything here is changed into gold,
That gold is made from iron and blood,
Day and night, from iron and blood?
—My son, from a mother you cannot hide—
A…
Commentary on Sotah: On the Education of Girls
Rabbi Eliezer said: Whoever teaches his daughter Torah teaches her indecency [m. Sotah 3:4]
The rabbis wrote that this refers only to the Oral Torah; but the Written Torah—even though one should not…
Oyfn pripetshik (At the Hearth)
There’s a fire in the hearth
Warm and cozy as it gets
The rebbe teaches children
The Hebrew alphabet
Aftergrowth
Behold I have not plowed nor have I planted,
I have not prayed for the rain.
And suddenly, see! My fields have grown
Sun-blessed grain instead of thistle.
Is it the aftergrowth of ancient produce,…
Fallen Leaves
Words forsaken—fallen leaves,
Let the wind scatter you,
And let me forget you.
I will remain like a wintry tree
Behind closed eyes, still
And silent.
Both the night will cradle me, ay-lu,
And the…
Once I Was Young
Once I was young, hung out
in doorways, listening to Socrates.
My closest pal, my lover
Had the finest chest in Athens.
Then came Caesar, and a world
glittering with marble—I
the last to go. For my…