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 Talmud Begins with a Question
The Babylonian Talmud opens by questioning the Mishnah itself, revealing a tradition built on inquiry, scripture, and layered reasoning.
Judaism and the Jews
The question I put before you, as well as before myself, is the question of the meaning of Judaism for the Jews.Why do we call ourselves Jews? Because we are Jews? What does that mean: we are Jews? I…
Tasks of the Polish Jews
The Jews in Poland still have a very demanding and holy task ahead of themselves. Or, to be more exact, they have a holy, lofty, most important and most responsible mission. Hasidism was born in…
What Is Judaism?
Mordecai Kaplan argues that Judaism is not abstract doctrine but a living Jewish consciousness—an evolving spiritual life shaped by history, identity, and community.
“Americanization” and the Cultural Prospect
Horace Kallen challenges the “melting-pot” ideal, exposing how Americanization masked exclusion and ignored the cultural lives of immigrant communities.
The Jewish Problem: How to Solve It
Brandeis argues that Zionism and American patriotism align, suggesting that Jewish heritage and civic duty can strengthen democracy and modern national life.
City of Killings
Bialik's famous poem is a response to the Kishinev pogrom and what he had heard from the victims; the title is sometimes translated "In the City of Slaughter."
On the Gathering of the Aggadah
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…
Letter from Fromet to Moses Mendelssohn
Berlin, 18 July 1777 Berlin, 13 Tammuz 5537
Dear Moses, may you live,
I hope that my letter will find you happy and in good spirits in Königsberg. We are all, thank G-d, well and alive, and when you…
Torah Finials (Corfu)
These silver Torah finials are from Corfu and were made between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by an artist whose initials were A.Z. They were used in the Scuola Greca Synagogue, which…
Black Flakes
Snow has fallen, with no light. A month
has gone by now or two, since autumn in its monkish cowl
brought tidings my way, a leaf from Ukrainian slopes:
“Remember it’s wintry here too, for the…
Todesfuge (1944–45)
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening
we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink
we shovel a grave in the air there you won’t lie too cramped
A man lives in…