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.
Sermon: On Freedom
Indeed, at a time when Israel was settled on their soil, in the land of Israel, the agricultural dimension of the holidays, their relation to the field, that is to say, their material aspect, was a…
Daughter of Babylon
Return to your ancient past
Aid your sister with education and culture
And people of Israel will once more be a nation.
Awake, daughter of Babylon, mother of knowledge
Take up in your hand the pen…
Secular Currents in the Synagogal Chant in America
The distinction between religious and secular music is not universally admitted. There is a considerable group of people, some of them very learned in the art and science of sound, who claim that…
My Heart Is with Your Dews, Homeland
My heart is with your dews, homeland,
At night, above fields of nettles
And to the scent of cypresses and wet thistle
A hidden wing shall I spread out.
Soft sand-cradles are your roads
Spread out…
Women-Poems I, II, VI
The women of our family will come to me in dreams at night and say:
Modestly we carried a pure blood across generations,
Bringing it to you like well-guarded wine from the kosher
Cellars of our…
The National Movement
Arise, shine, for thy light is come,
Shake thyself from the dust
Unlock the lock on your neck
Be saved from your enemy.
Awaken, get out of thy exile
Rise up from your degradation
Wake up from your…
Stalinstan
Stalinstan,
Stalinstan,
Who is present and on hand
From the Party,
From the Union?
Who was on his way
Somewhere else today,
When a chain of men caught him
And then brought him
To…
A White Poet
For H. Leyvik
New York.
A white poet stood on the hundred-and-fourth floor.
The sky and an iron city
Engaged in a conversation.
A thirsty “forever” marched on
In bewildered
Disorganization.
New York…
Things
From Hoza Street and Marszalkowska
carts were moving, Jewish carts:
furniture, tables and chairs,
suitcases, bundles
and chests, boxes and bedding,
suits and portraits,
pots, linen and wall…
A Fire Is Kindled within Me
A fire [of joy] is kindled within me, when I recall [the spiritual climate] when I was in Yemen,
[But] my soul [descended to] abysmal depths and was immensely astounded when I came to Zion.
The Jews…
Amputation
And so its pain is unremitting, like an amputated leg
This ash and feathery void chafes at us,
They say two willows were seen in Mazowsze
wearing green prayer shawls also a market stall
in the middle…
The East Side: Matrix of the Jewish Labor Movement
Concentration in specific trades was a distinctive feature of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. In America this concentration assumed extreme forms. More than half of all Jewish workers (wage…