Vox Populi
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Deena November: The Tree of Life
Saturday, October 27, 2018
I tell my daughter and son as they fight over
tiny Legos (later my one-year-old will choke on)
that there was a shul shooting,
killing 11 because they were Jews
because they helped refugees,
because they helped
and my kids are not shocked but
they stop playing Legos for a few minutes.
When the wolves are in the school,
we run for the trees,
my daughter says quietly
and I can’t process it.
I ask her to repeat herself,
We are the sheep and
the teacher is our shepherd…
When the wolf is in the school
we run for the trees.
She is recalling the ALICE drill
they learned earlier in the week.
It has always been there though,
the sloppy black spray painted swastikas
and Die Jews!
on the smooth yellow bricks of my high school Yeshiva,
on mossy overturned grave stones,
on my best friends’ childhood plywood sukkah,
the man in the SUV honking,
yelling Kike
as we walk to shul
in our fancy Shabbos clothing.
NPR reports a 57 percent increase
in anti-Semitic acts this year alone
and I know why
this year has been different.
No one thought this could happen
in America,
except the Jews. We have always known
a familiar slaughter
not sleeping but waiting,
a violent eviction,
like every other country since the
beginning of time.
.
Note: On Saturday October 27, 2018, Robert Bowers attacked The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing eleven people and wounding six, including several Holocaust survivors. It was the deadliest attack ever on the Jewish community in the United States.
Copyright 2023 Deena November. All rights reserved.
Deena November is the author of Mean Mama (Main Street Rag, 2017) She has edited two anthologies, Nasty Women & Bad Hombres (Lascaux Editions, 2017) and I Just Hope It’s Lethal (Houghton Mifflin Co., 2005). She enjoys strolling through the gardens of Phipps with her four kids.
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No words. Sadness and outrage.
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Sadness. Outrage. Again.
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Breaks my heart. >
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Like the poet, I too have a hard time processing it. Almost daily, I drive by the Tree of Life Synagogue, about one and one-half miles from my home and every time I hit the corner of Shady and Wilkins, I am reminded that 11 people of the Jewish faith were mercilessly slaughtered in the worst anti-Semitic act in our nation’s history. This was done by a man who was and is, obviously, mentally deranged, which is never an excuse but an explanation and cannot bring those innocent eleven back to their families. Then, every morning, I am also reminded of another kind of mental derangement, as no excuse but still an explanation, in those who have found themselves believing and supporting collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza because a few Palestinian Gazans (out of a 2.4 million population) under the banner of Hamas, mercilessly slaughtered about 1400 Jewish residents of Israel. Somehow allowing newborns to die in their incubators in Gaza hospitals because Israel will not allow fuel into Gaza seems to be as cruel an act as any other we can imagine or commit. Both the hatred in Robert Bowers as he prepared and slaughtered Jews in the Tree of Life nor the hatred that allows some Israelis and supporters to cheer on the death of Gazan children and civilians is, I hope, still beyond my capacity. I can only continue to work for an end to that hate and cruelty that allows some to act inhumanely and scream anti-Semite at me as I stand with the Palestinian people and also an end to those who scream anti-Semitic smears when people support the rights of Jews to live freely. My enduring thanks to the poet for sharing her pain. I hope she can understand mine as well.
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Thank you, Mel. It’s difficult to accept that there is so much hatred in the world, and even in our own community.
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This poem is heartbreaking. Its conversational tone serves to make it more powerful. Thank you, Deena, and Michael Simms, for this. Today we remember the 11 people murdered. May their memories be for blessing.
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Thank you, Valerie.
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Grateful for the wakenings of these words even as I’m alarmed and saddened by the world they reveal. What are we to do with ourselves?
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Oh, Sean… Every time I drive by The Tree of Life synagogue, I’m overcome by sadness.
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