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.
World of Our Fathers
To think of the culture brought over by the immigrant Jews as a “mere” folk culture is a patronizing error, though an error often indulged in by later generations of American Jews. There was, of…
The Book of Resemblances
The author of the book in question hides behind various pseudonyms, which are promptly presented as voices from the beginning of time and as figures both familiar and strange: for he is himself a…
When Loners Come Together: A Portrait of Hebrew Literature at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
As a subjective experience, the early and easy entry of the [Hebrew] authors of the early twentieth century into the literary arena had deep, formative, and constant influence. This entry marks a…
Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint
This is a story that begins with J. It was the fifteenth of July 1930.
It’s about J; it’s about a consonant still a little vowelish, a little i-ish in the aftermath of a magic philology.
Were I not…
Be’ure ha-midot (Clarification of the Virtues)
And Joshua said unto all Israel: “Draw near,” etc.—Joshua 3:9.
In Midrash Genesis Rabbah, section 5 (Gen. Rabbah 5:7), it is stated: “Rav Huna said: ‘He stood them up between the two staves of the…
A Trumpet in the Wadi
This fictional exploration of interethnic relationships is set in 1980s Israel, a time of significant political and social turmoil owing to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.
Holy Days
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them:
These are My fixed times, the fixed times of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions.
On six days work…
The Firstfruits Ceremony
When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land…
The Hit of the Century
The Jewish theme in Ru.Shtetl is a metaphor. The closest mainstream parallel explaining the essence of what Patrick Lisidze conceived of is Siniavskii’s pseudonym, Abram Terts. Terts’s Jewishness was…
The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet
The fourth letter, ד, has the shape of an open doorway and its name, דָּלֶת, dalet, is cognate with דֶּלֶת [deles], door. The ד also alludes to דַּל, pauper, who knocks on doors, begging for alms. In…
A Dictionary of Political Terms
Politishes verter-bukh (A Dictionary of Political Terms) is an anonymous work billed as “an interpretation of the strange words that are used in Yiddish newspapers, journals, and political and…