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II. Out of the Depths
OUT OF THE DEPTHS
Out of the depths of the earth Rotten roots have sprouted And defiled the waters of the spring, the earth erupted The doorposts trembled Gog and Magog spread out on the land From the depths of the earth Lava gushed up and mountains sprouted And wounded the shell of innocence And cries of anguish flew upward. Out of the depths I cried to you G-d And now the ministering angels are circling overhead Ascending and descending and searching The face of the earth in waves upon waves And a great hand inscribes letters of fire and smoke Mene mene tekel upharsin —Rachel Saidoff Mizrachi tr. EC
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Burrowing Our Way Back One Millimetre at a Time
We were budding branches turning our faces towards the sun. We were soft petaled red and white anemones, delicate purple irises, bright yellow daffodils. The skin kissed our skin and sprinkled our noses and cheeks with delicate drops of gold. The world and everything in it felt boundless. We wanted to be outside for as long as we could. We wanted to sway and shimmy to the pulsating, futuristic rhythms of trance. Colourful canopies hung over us as we danced, pink and orange, purple and green, forming white star shapes over our heads. The performer’s tent flashed neon. We moved wildly, crowds of us shaking our curls and dreads, waving our turquoise rings and smiling as our teeth glowed, sweating in our patterned caftans, and red bikini tops and shorts, lifted on each other’s bare shoulders, laughing and shouting, our energy endless. There was room to spread out, to lie under the stars in sleeping bags and bright blue tents, to take in the beauty all around us; the trees swaying in the wind in the distance, the synths lulling us to sleep. In the early morning, some of us were still dancing, kicking up dust, ambling with our arms around each other, some of us we were barely awake, bleary eyed, but we saw flashes of yellow and red shooting through the sky, we heard screaming and glass shattering, the whipcrack of bullets whizzing past our heads, we wanted to tell our friends to run but we knew it was too late. When we saw the bodies all around us, some of us pretended to be dead.
When we were led into the dark, we felt our bodies change. Our limbs grew rubbery as we were pushed further down the rusting metal ladder, merging into a space narrow enough for us to move in single file, our shoulders hunched and merged with our sides, our thighs pressed into each other. We shrunk into ourselves. The air smelled like dust, like chalk and concrete and spray paint, like fear and nausea and hopelessness and claustrophobia. Our skin felt like blood and slime. They tried to bury us. They didn’t know that we were worms. People don’t know enough about worms. They don’t know how resilient we are, how little of everything, even oxygen we need to survive. They don’t know that up close, we look like carefully rendered charcoal swirls, full of chiaroscuro, and texture. We’re as beautiful and miraculous as any of God’s creations. And we’re chronically underestimated, if people think about us at all. Sometimes, I think, maybe it’s better. You can survive for longer when people are thinking about you less. And that’s all we wanted to do, you know. All we wanted to do was survive. We didn’t all love trance music. Some of us were die hard fans of Astral Projection and Man With No Name, we wanted to hear songs like People Can Fly and Dancing Galaxy, we wanted to whirl and move as fast as we could. We wanted to feel the rhythms in every single cell in our bodies. Some of us thought it was cheesy. It was something to do in the latest in a string of exhausting national holidays. Rosh Hashana is a big one, it’s a celebration of the New Year, all the apples and honey and extra sweet challah and hopes for the year ahead. Yom Kippur is serious and somber, you fast, you get sealed in the book of life, or death for the year, if you believe in that kind of thing. Sukkot is the one where we build a hut, where we eat outside and celebrate the harvest. So what better way to celebrate the harvest than being in a place where you can see orchards and fields for a whole week? It was Shemini Atzeret. How many people even knew what we were supposed to be celebrating? On the morning of the last day, some people saw rockets in the sky. A few even filmed them, flying over our heads, as casual as fireworks. First it was a few, then it was the most any of us had ever seen. Code Red, people started yelling. Run, run. Kadima. We started running in every direction. We saw the guys in military fatigues, firing at anyone trying to escape. We sprinted, dashed to public missile shelters, behind bushes and the biggest trees in nearby orchards. Some of us hid inside a giant fridge. Some of us ran to our cars, desperate to leave, like so many ants moving millimetres on a crowded path, people shooting at close range, and our cars, like origami and plastic toys, were easily crushed and punctured. We heard explosions. Then they blocked the roads. Some of us lived in the area. Some of us had families, husbands, wives, and kids, teenagers, full cheeked babies with pudgy wrists and sweet-smelling skin. Some of us were grandparents. Some of us were kids at a sleepover, sleeping in Spiderman or Frozen print sheets, waiting to drink shoko or a slather of chocolate spread inside a half slice of pita. We never knew how many of us there were. Some of us were hidden in houses, moving around while the bombs shook the foundations of where we crouched, sometimes we were sure this was how we’d die, from the fire of our own army. There was never anywhere to run. When we tried, chains around our wrists and ankles, or in filthy weeks old clothing, it was obvious to anyone who we were, and we were returned like delinquent sheep who’d wandered too far away from our owner. A few teenagers were branded using a motorcycle exhaust pipe. Some of us were taken underground, crammed into a heat filled, narrow passage. Later, someone said something about hell, and someone religious said if this is Gehenom, we have twelve months to pray to be taken to Olam Habah. Great, someone else said, so in twelve months, we’ll be dead, but we’ll be better off, in the World to Come. We struggled to imagine twelve more months. It was too dark to know what day it was, or how long it had been. They didn’t feed us much, but they gave us water. We divided grains of rice like they were magic beans. Some of us slept on filthy mattresses, some of us slept on the floor. We were kicked and hit, told to be quieter, as if anyone could hear us. We told each other our life stories. We whispered about our interests, our families, our jobs. We met the leader once. He was not what we expected. We’d heard he surrounded himself with the youngest of us, and we pictured him strutting like a lion, walking through the dark followed by tiny prisms of light, rainbows, soft fluffy clouds we’d yearn to talk to and touch, but it’s just him, a slight, not very tall man, who fidgets and eyes us like a hyena eyeing a pile of carcasses. He has the cold-eyed gaze of a bottom feeder. We gave each other lectures on our interests to pass the time. We talked about all the things we’d lost. In my previous life I made art; I had a painting in my bedroom that said Jerusalem is Everyone’s in Hebrew and Arabic I had plans to organize soccer games for Israeli and Palestinian kids I had plans to travel. There were so many countries I wanted to see. In my previous life I organized international peace rallies, I drove Palestinian kids in need to Israeli hospitals, I pursued peace like my life depended on it then I went home and baked cakes for my grandchildren’s birthdays In my previous life I had a partner I had two kids I taught yoga and I practiced it everyday I hiked with my dad I had Batman pajamas, and my best friend gave me his cape. I was learning how to teach Pilates I had a mother who was dying. I knew it before, but I wanted as much time with her as I could get. I know she wants to be with me. I had a boyfriend who loved me and I didn’t know where he was There was a girl I loved but I never told her. How would I tell her now? At night, I imagine different scenarios. I fought with my baby brother before I left; instead of telling him his drawing was stupid, I wish I could tell him how beautiful it was I yelled at my sister for borrowing my clothes. I wish I’d just let her have them I had parents who drove me crazy, now I wish I could hear their voices I had my own room, my own bathroom I had clean clothes, a closet full, a washing machine, Band-Aids and Polysporin I had a home In my previous life I had colour and variation I had gentle dreams, my worst nightmares were about work stresses or relationship stuff or friendships I showered whenever I wanted to I had two strong arms and hands and knees no exposed bone and blood I used bathrooms whenever I had to go, I walked freely without asking for permission No one’s hands groped me as I tried to squeeze by In my previous life I had friends I had religious parents Maybe I should have stayed home In this life I play out these thoughts over and over If I’d apologized If I’d just told them Had kissed him one more time, had hugged them. We wondered if they somehow knew it anyway, if they sense our love, moving through the earth like tiny currents, the way we could sense theirs. If they knew how hard we were trying, digging and burrowing our way back to them one millimetre at a time. Worms move incrementally, but we’re still moving. It takes intense heat and pressure deep within the earth to form the world’s hardest and most valuable gems. We don’t know how many days it’s been or how many are still to come. But we have stories to tell you, stories where we amaze each other and ourselves. Where we protect each other, where we advocate, where we refuse where we ask for things. For prayer books and corn flour. For an older man to go free in our place. When we remember who we were. When we aspire to become survivors, leaders, diamonds. We could hear your voices, as if they’d been blasted over a loudspeaker, we’re waiting for you, be strong, blessing us like they did on Friday nights, May God Bless You and Keep You and Shine His Light On You, May You Feel His Presence Within You Always, and May You Find Peace. Just Survive, we need you. We love you. So, we imagine ourselves standing in the light again. We imagine ourselves standing on a sidewalk, with traffic lights and cars and kids on bikes, our ears filled with the sounds of life. We imagine ourselves in our homes, in your arms, our bodies wrapping themselves around you like the branches of a strangler fig. We imagine planting ourselves so deep we can never be uprooted again. We imagine not having to imagine anymore, being able to tell you face to face that you were the reason that we made it. —Danila Botha
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Humanity?
The sky is pale and colourless the clouds weeping the wind wailing woefully the sun won’t show its face. Tearful trees, mournful, sway to and fro crestfallen birds quiet perched on branches out of view forlorn flowers listless, almost lifeless sullen animals skulking not knowing where to put themselves. And where is humankind?
The human race silent while angels on high are crying in uncontrollable anguish and God Himself is grieving for lost humanity. —Julian Alper
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Tears for Israel
Though I am not Jewish Nor even overly Religious My heart cries For Israel
True, I may be old; Still, even as my Sight grows dim And my aching Limbs weaken daily
I can distinguish Right from wrong, Good from evil, And what was done October 7th is pure evil
Yet, the strength I have Seen portrayed, in the Face of all this horror Makes me believe that Israel will survive
Even so, the pain Will long endure For such loss cannot Be erased. Yes, my Heart cries for Israel —Dawn McCormack
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PLEASE ACT
Here in the lined tunnel Sprayed with warm red paint G-d near and far I call to you From my turned intestines G-d whose name is mighty Do not desecrate Your name Do not cut off the covenant Do not chop off You name from the mouths of our infants Who bleat toward you like kids Seeking a shepherd For on Your account were killed forever And on Your account alone we shall live On Your mercy On Your name in our mouths Act so that we shall no longer say Act for the sake of those slaughtered for Your Oneness. —Araleh Admanit tr. EC
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ABDUCTEES AND SOLDIERS 21.6.25
Never for even a moment may we forget Those who were dragged away. Their cry remains In the air, as they in the black heat Of Gaza are still rotting in iron chains.
In the month of March the flower of youth went out To shield the mother, the infant, and the old, From the cruel foe, in the breach they stood stout That the border towns in safety might unfold
That the nation might at last securely dwell That the land may not shake underfoot, nor the sky overhead, That from this earth that drank dear blood may well New life, new flowering, to recall our dead.
For every fallen soldier there are those – Who mourn – the mother, father, and all kin, And a whole nation that must feel the throes Of the dead and the living, deep within.
It is forbidden to forget, to desert Our brothers there, in the clutch of cruelty, We must do all we can to heal their hurt – Tomorrow, if not today, we must set them free. —Haggai Kamrat tr. EC
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MOTHER AND SON IN THE SHELTER
Your hand dropped limply from mine Sleep my child the treasure of my soul Mother caresses you with a look Sleep my little child
The shelter is dark and cold my child Dream now my son of lamb and kid Perhaps it will warm my heart a little To know that you my son are at ease.
Outside is the noise of war The beasts shoot without distinguishing Missiles move in the twilight Hush, sleep, my son, yours are the dreams.
But reality is so hard And the door of the shelter is heavy The old Persian man with his jaws Wants to slaughter people.
Now it is quiet in the shelter The mother is silent her hand relaxed The son, his mother’s angel, sleeps Her anxiety for her son has fallen asleep. —Haggai Kamrat tr. EC
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FAITH
During the memorial siren Man stands as if lost: One sways to and fro Like his father in prayer. One hitches his belt Like his brother before battle One hunches over Like his child in the shelter.
One writes as if believing That no more will be lost. —Omer Berkman tr. EC *
AS I DRIVE
As I drive home in my car music from an Arabic radio station pounces on me, bursts through the window of the classical music station skewering Chopin slaughtering Beethoven extinguishing Bach hewing Shostakovich in pieces lopping the head and limbs off Bartok singing in a trill that is a scream: Kibbush! Kibbush!* —Hamutal Bar-Yosef tr. EC *Kibbush – a word meaning “conquest,” often used to refer to the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, or even in Israel itself, by those opposed to it. (In English this is called the "occupation.")
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THE DECREE UPON US
I, the pajama with the dinosaur Woke up to a voice that rose and fell That penetrated the heart I leaped with a trembling body Into the earth To be absorbed deep inside With all the neighbors Between cement walls In a pale dim light I wanted the dinosaurs to come out To fight back And they only screamed without sound How long Are we sentenced to flee —Araleh Admanit tr. EC
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LIFE IS SIPPED FROM A TEASPOON
Life is sipped from a teaspoon, Little bits each day. The great abundance Perhaps is hidden for the time being, But still remembered.
I try each day to taste Some kind of essence, that will remind me of life, That life, the one we had. To grasp the remnants That are still here. To remember beauty, The sounds, the tastes, The smells of the sea The murmur of waves. —Yehudit Solomon tr. EC
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WHOM SHALL I BELIEVE TODAY?
And perhaps I will choose today to believe The calm blue of the sky, And not the helicopters threatening from above. Perhaps the newspapers are carriers of lies And only the white of the moon’s footprints tells the truth. Perhaps all the madness around us Is only a nightmare, A world of lies and illusions, And the truth is hidden in the fresh green of a vigorous tree, In the lovely pink, the dreamy purple, The vivid yellow of the flowers, The laughter of babies, The pleasant touch of skin, recalling forgotten things, And perhaps in my pen Still scribbling thoughts And keeping faith with my soul Which is still floating in the regions of life. —Yehudit Solomon tr. EC
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Inured Dept.
I hear a bird begin its call And at first I thought it was a siren. —Larry Lefkowitz
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Shores of Western Galilee, Winter 2024
The sea sends little breakers. The shoreline keeps its coves, the sun’s rays ripple Round the rocks and, further up to Lebanon, They fade on the horizon, where border boulders, Huge and gray, feign tranquility. Look, sweetheart, at our feet the waves Toss conch shells and sea-worn bits of colored glass Onto the sandy beach, then take the prizes back With jeering regularity.
Long ago Jeremiah cried out Thieving priests and hollow kings Would bring the Lord's wrath And foreign invaders burn our fields and trees, Disperse or bear us off, And break our Temple stones.
But belief was steel, renewal held sway. We Israelites in caravans came back. Faith found a new day And held us in her mothering arms. Within and out, over and over, Escaping even ovens libel-lit, Our people fell but rose. Today patrol boats guard our coast And howitzers return enemy fire As mere whitecaps hit the beach.
Dear, let us shield our love And keep watch on family and friend, For despite the porches on our tree-lined streets, Our homes and businesses that seem so usual, Tunnels hide sly battle tools around our edges, And enemies hold even toddlers hostage While we take our walk along the shore And go about our normal ways Beneath the swoop of taloned war. —Eli Ben-Joseph, February 2024
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Sometimes a Sorcerer for Kfir and Ariel Bibas
Blinding copper auras of Two titian crowned toddlers Ignite the firmament. Cosmos erupt into full bloom Sparkling shrapnel sings across the sky Bringing birds and butterflies to Eden. Hummingbirds come to thirst no more.
The boys, hand in hand, hover over the garden floor. A freezing blaze, frantic with silent snakes, star-nosed moles Shimmers and sparkles under their bantam toes. While the beasts and freaks wiggle and writhe The ginger boys dematerialize. In a whisper pass into ash and dust. The wailing mother the keening father Get louder and louder as their children evanesce.
Sometimes a sorcerer might intervene But even the Gods and their miracles fail Their finite candles snuff, smoke, and sputter. To be relit on days declared to enshrine the vanished, To fix a brand on hearts, a tattoo on minds.
The inhalations, exhalations and lamentations Tumble the cairn carcasses, shapeshifting through centuries Until what is remembered becomes what is imagined. And what remains is a story to be religiously retold. Don’t make your bed with sheets of tears. Around they’ll come again after the agony. See the coronas rising in the East. Twin suns for another generation. Then back onto the perpetual wheel of madness Eternity is already here. Time is a concertina. It is not a line. —Anne Hall Levine
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A MOMENT AT THE WALL
I was standing before the great and holy wall, the wall of our patriarchs hugging har haMoriah. And as I said the ancient prayer את צמח דוד עבדך מהרה תצמיח A bright yellow flower Sprung up from among my words And as the flower continued to grow, To enlarge- in my mind’s eye, an image emerged among the delicate yellow, filamentous petals. From its very center I felt a sense of strong recognition a familiarity, a great presence, emanating a sense of kingship, growing slowly and clearly in size, glory and majesty. It was as if the tefilla was responding to my yearning, to the words I spoke,
sharing with me an image, of the flowering, of the beautiful renewal of Davidic kingship. Today, it is my prayer, Perhaps, tomorrow, a reality. —Don Kristt
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This is not a Dream Ceci n'est pas un rêve
after Rene Magritte’s paintings “The Treachery of Images,” with its inscription “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” and “The Castle of the Pyrenees” (displayed in Jerusalem’s Israel Museum)
I dream of the day when castles in the air will float nonchalantly by without a care in the world be they castles in Spain in the Pyrenees or in Jerusalem.
I dream of the time when people will say this is not a pipe bomb this is not a ballistic missile this is not a machine gun this is not a bullet.
I dream of the day when the third Temple will descend from on high like a hot air balloon landing atop a majestic mountain.
I dream of the time when lions and lambs and wolves and kids will frolic together on bouncy castles under the vine and under the fig tree with none to make them afraid.
I dream of the day when people will remember Herzl’s words “If you will it, it is no dream.”
I dream of the time when people will say this is not a pipe dream. —Julian Alper
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What I Wanna Say
I want to quote King David What Is going on right now And what are people That You chose to create us?
Somewhere Within a few kilometers Of where I write King David sent words Scattering Echoing Through the trails Up and down the hillsides
Words that still seek out The What*lovingkindness And try to get there And we go through fields Of pain Of delight To understand the What
So let’s not forget The fields of good and Chessed* Pure waters Fields we can only Dream about That is what I wanna say. —Mindy Aber Barad
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Desperate faith emerges From dire circumstance: The ship is sinking fast,
The house goes up in flames, The soldier falls in war, The helpless orphans wail.
And still our hearts believe In heaven, not in hell, And a world where all is well. —David Weiser
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CYCLE — TESTIMONY. IN THOSE DAYS AT THIS TIME
1.
All the same, something is standing there Between the ruins of two mighty buildings. It stands — like a statue — it is a statue That was not destroyed in the terrible bombing of the city From which my mother fled as a young woman before the war
A statue stands and the folds of its robe are like waves — as if it had donned the cloak of the High Priest — holding something hidden like a scroll In memory of the tablets of the covenant.
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In another photograph On the edge of the ruined city On a hill A majestic stag stands tall Like a primeval god And the heights of his horns
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Do not put forth your hand to the ram Neither do anything to him, do not put forth Your hand, do not put forth your hand to the ram In the splendor of his power, the heights of his horns Like the crowd of trees in the wood are exalted Do not put forth your hand to the galloping ram Do not put forth your hand to the shining ram For at the edge of the cliff he will stand and contemplate
2.
And all the lizards and all the frogs that had assembled in secret Arriving one after the other, also the iguanas, And the geckos, year after year, assembled and covered the porch Clinging to the walls, with claws and tails, still testifying to tell me That from dust we came and to dust we will return In the colors of earth and fire
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As if he conjures on the thread of your sleep from which they burst forth on their hidden path In an inner dreaming, flashes of messages that seek to tell you that something-someone jumped into what for no reason, Convulses, hurts, pinches, awakens, tosses the limbs of your body without meaning, as if they were runners of the chariot Of absorption and transmission of anonymous knowledge in dream and waking. Who is it conjures within us with his electricities, Beyond waking and sleeping, day makes a mock of day, beyond the inwardness of the body and its husks, Trying to correct its injustices.
* Before the body seizes the soul, the soul will seize the spirit And the spirit will seize the body and the body will seize what hurts and ia defiled And the excrement and what fades will seize the soul within the body within the spirit And we will ascend and descend and be humbled and stink and rise up and elevate and be uplifted And be broken apart and break apart and ascend and bring down and be Soul spirit higher soul higher spirit and that is the exit Within it and beyond it soul and he called and screamed
3. All the poems that are written in this time, unconsciously seek to be The rectification of souls in their passage in the birth canal toward the great Hidden – And all these trembling songs seek to be an iron dome To protect the intelligence button of a world that betrayed us, to open the gate of The garden, to hold on to ourselves to each other so as not to fall.
* The deep seas covered them — The hole in his forehead no longer hurts him The darkness around him no longer hurts him His parents no longer hurt him His beloved no longer hurts him His orphans no longer hurt him His longing no longer hurts him The earth beneath him no longer hurts him They went down into the depths like a stone
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Don’t look behind Don’t look at the hole Don’t look at the pit Don’t look at the blackness
Turn your face to the light And believe in it.
The day will come when again we will say As it is written “Rouse yourself, arise from the dust” The day will come — “Put on your robes of splendor” — —Ruth Netzer tr. EC
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Time of Beginning, Time of Dawn
—Balfour Hakak
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