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.
Here Lives the Jewish People
The towering life of the towering city
Is burning in white fires.
And in the streets of the Jewish East side
The whiteness of the fires burns even whiter.
I like to stroll in the burning frenzy of…
Vilna
Someone in a tales is walking your rooftops.
Only he is stirring in the city by night.
He listens. Old gray veins quicken—sound
Through courtyard and synagogue like a hoarse, dusty heart.
You are a…
Moscow Night, End of December 1934
It’s hard to be clever these nights,
And useless to be modern.
Useless to smile knowingly and observe with melancholy
The language bastardisms of history:
“The government of the Republic is delivered…
Summer 1937
For my child, today, it is so easy
to make the awful discovery, that people kill
and are killed: both things and people
speak the language of the red angel.
My child asks me: Why are people being…
Attempt to Explain a Mellah
September 7, 1912. The French enter Marrakesh. Marching through the Djema el Fna Square, surrounded by his general staff, Colonel Mangin is surprised to hear, amid the discordant noises of the crowd…
Parting Words
We know that a writer has no power except in the pen. Nevertheless there are times when it behooves us to alter the ordinary manner of expression. There are times when the author, too, must depart…
Insult
Jew, you’ve yelled at him, seething with rage.
Jew, you’ve yelled at him, seeking to shame him.
Jew, no better word can you find to defame him.
Jew, no better word to vent your disdain.
For him it…
The Martyrdom of the 93 Beit Ya‘akov Girls
We cleansed our bodies and we are pure,
We cleansed our spirits and are at peace.
Death does not frighten us,
We shall meet it calmly.
We served God with…
Thoughts on the Third Destruction
I leaf through the commemorative albums of the settlements of Ri’shon Le-tsion, Reḥovot, Petaḥ-Tikvah, and Ḥadera. Among other things I was looking for documentary material on the establishment of the…
Jerusalem 1967
This year I traveled a long way
to view the silence of my city.
A baby calms down when you rock it, a city calms down
from the distance. I dwelled in longing. I played the hopscotch
of the four…
Family Sayings
After the war the world seemed vast, unknowable and boundless. However, my mother went back to living in the world as best she could, happily, for she had a happy nature. Her spirit could never grow…