Sandy Solomon: Jewish Immigrant, Michigan, 1885
He knows what his father would say—Throw it back—
so he flings it away, watches it twirl as it falls,
like a star arcing over the stirring grasses.
Alison Luterman: She for whom I am named
left Russia at fifteen to follow her betrothed.
Good-bye, skinny chickens and fly-bitten cows,
synagogue leaning on one side, as if to dodge blows
from a Cossack’s boot
Valerie Bacharach: The Synagogue
Someone enters the sanctuary, picks up the chair
thrown by the Rabbi,
places it gently with the others, a straight row
waiting for bodies.
Jena Schwartz: Preparing for Sabbath
This voice of mine is stuck tonight,
words falling everywhere as I prepare
for the Sabbath, sweeping piles
of debris from the ground…
Baruch November: Dream 12
They tell me it is okay to dance
to this music as we all should
be very modern religious Jews
who need to bust the most modern moves.
Baruch November: St. Louis Park, M.N.
they would ask how it felt
“to be a kike, to taste a baby’s
blood, to kill a savior?”
Baruch November: Beard 7
In its color alone,
my beard is the sun falling upon the evening
and some days
it is chaffing brambles, poison
sumac, creeping red vines everywhere.
Don Krieger: Breendonk Generations
1. Anna and Isaac met in an orphanage where they were hidden as Catholics. They married in Antwerp. The house door was six inches thick. Two great bolts shot into … Continue reading
Majid Naficy: Helen
Sometimes I see Helen Passing by Wearing a long skirt. She pushes a metal walker Scraping against the ground. She always asks: “Sir! What day is today? What day is … Continue reading
Alison R. Parker: Being Jewish in Trump’s America is a profoundly unsettling reality
I never believed that anti-Semitism had disappeared, or ever would. But neither did I ever expect to live with the kind of fear and torment that older generations spoke of in … Continue reading
