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.
Memoirs of a Man’s Maiden Years
This book tells a true story. In it, what was probably the strangest youth who ever lived, shall speak with its own voice. This life needs to be believed, as strange as it may seem. But strangeness…
My Memories
That was how she watched over the samovar all night long, so that it would boil properly. Occasionally, Grandfather stayed over for several nights at the home of one of the gentry. Then, she would…
In Which World?
A choked wail . . . Mama paces around the narrow room as though asking for something, her hands grasping her head and striking her heart, and with sobs caught in her throat, she calls out:“Woe unto me…
On the Gathering of the Agadah
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…
Grand Synagogue of Paris
Designed in the neo-Romanesque style of many contemporaneous French churches, the Grand Synagogue of Paris followed the prevailing architectural aesthetic in France, integrating the architectural and…
The Last Breath
The Last Breath is one of the genre paintings depicting the lives of fishermen and their families for which Jozef Israëls was best known. In this scene, a woman is weeping over the body of her husband…
Shulamis
CharactersMaenoyakh, an old citizen of BethlehemShulamis, his daughterAvisholom, a young hero descended from the Maccabees.Fourth SceneAvisholom I shall not leave here until I have restedJerusalem is…
Letter from an Egyptian Jewish Deist on Why He Will Not Convert to Islam
You said, in the beginning of the second page, “The young man then adopted the Muslim religion.” Please omit this because I did not change the faith of my parents, although I respect the three…
Diary Entries
“Consummatum est!” I could exclaim on January 1, 1876.The minister [Jozsef Eötvös] frivolously deceived me. His promise turned out to be a premeditated lie. Scorn and sarcasm were his response when I…
Antigoyism in Zion
As I informed you in yesterday’s cable, hearings on the cause célèbre that is stirring up all of Palestine have begun before the Grand Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.
The issue is really quite…
The Jews and the Fatherland
Dear colleague:
I received your letter asking me to send you clear information about the political situation, notably in regard to the Jewish national movement.
Do you not believe that it is still…
The War for Our Nation
[By “war”] I mean concrete war—rather than a war of words or an incomplete war of demonstrations. I am not in denial regarding the existence of these words or those demonstrations, and neither do I…