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.
My Beloved France
Have I made it clear how much I indulge my husband? Seven years of love had been simply one long series of concessions, joyfully made in a whirl of happiness. I adjusted to everything, all the…
Women in the Synagogue
Duality manifests itself in all things, but in nothing is this two-foldness more plainly seen than in woman’s nature.
The weaker sex physically, it is the stronger spiritually, it having been said…
The Book of Paradise
Pisherl woke up. He was delighted when, on coming into the workroom, he discovered I was there. He ran up and embraced me as if we hadn’t seen each other in years…
Souls of Chaos
The conventional pattern of living, based on propriety, on the requisites of good character and conformity to law—this corresponds to the way of the world of order. Every rebellion against this…
God’s Gifts
My most pious songs have I written
On rising from my sinful bed.
God has given me a wealth of sins,
And God alone has saved me from my sins.
Translated by David Soeterndorp.
Free Love
I do not believe in free love.
There is legal marriage, an institution based on ideas and pretenses.
A legally married wife you can divorce, but where will you run away from free love?
As for…
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…
The Lithuanian Yeshivas
These students, who poured into the Yeshivah from near and far, what were they seeking? And what was the Yeshivah seeking to give them? Did the students undertake to complete their course work at…
We Polish Jews
“All right,” someone will say, “granted you are a Pole. But in that case, why ‘we jews’?” To which I answer: because of blood “Then racialism again?” No, not racialism at all. Quite the contrary.
Th…
First Address to the Knesset
It is with a feeling of deep reverence and consecration that I rise to open the Constituent Assembly of the State of Israel, the first Knesset Israel of our time in this eternal…
Notes to an Old–New Debate
Many people believe that the question of “the mingling of the diasporas” will be resolved in the workplace, in the mixed neighborhood, in school, etc. oriental [Mizrahi] Jews, they say, who acquire…
Eulogy for Roi Rotberg
Yesterday morning Roi was murdered. He was lulled by the quiet of the spring morning and did not notice those lying in wait in the furrow.
Today, let us not cast aspersions at the murderers. How can…