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.
Two Fatherlands
O, if through thy eyes, like through sea waves,
My love could sail like a ship,
Long ago with full sails I would have boldly
Struck to your heart, like to the Holy Land.
If you light up for me in…
Yom HaKippurim
Do you know who turns and returns?
Do you know the meaning of Atonement?
Do you know who watched for you by night,
Late, and in the early morning light?
Do you know who verges on Atonement?
Do you…
Bolted Room
Dark, bolted room.
Thick air soaked with fear and danger.
Fabius Lind—eye to eye
With a bewildering woman.
Fabius Lind is small and trembling,
The woman is big and growing—and pouring out
Odors of a…
The Nest Disappears
(Written at the end of 1939 in Havana—with thoughts about Poland)
Our poor nest eternally atremble
in the wind.
What will happen now, in bloody storm,
mayn kind?
Now, in bloody storm . . . ?
The…
The Heritage of 5703
5703—Because of its horrors, all the preceding years of Hitler will pale in people’s memory, even 5677 [1917] and 5665 [1905], and even 5408 [1648] and 5252 [1492]. In none of these peak years of the…
Shards
Now, when my vision turns in on itself,
My shocked eyes open, all their members see
My heart has fallen like a mirror on
A stone and shatters, ringing, into splinters.
Certainly, not every shard is…
You’ll Return with God’s Help
You will come back.
You will, with God’s help, come back
With a far-off, alien look.
(I’m preparing myself,
I already know,
I’ve seen how they come back.)
You will sit in your regular chair, unsure
A…
Yonatan
I run on the bridge
and the children follow
Yonatan
Yonatan they call
a little blood
just a little blood to finish up the honey
I’d let them pierce me with tacks
but the children want
and they are…
Time and the Other
The hope for a better society and the despair of solitude, both of which are founded on experiences that claim to be self-evident, seem to be in an insurmountable antagonism. There…
Notes from the American Revolution
I felt a common cause with these good men and women who had been moved to mid-wife freedom in the south, but the gulf that separated us is also wide. Their spirit of confession…
Amos vs. Amaziah
What made Amos vs. Amaziah weigh so heavily in the annals of history? I can only attempt a hint or an inkling of an answer.
I do so best by returning to the vision of Amos, as he…