The siren sounds in my twin sister’s back yard
as I sip her fine scotch
and listen to my hero nephew speak of blood and war.
I was told to listen to the direction of its trajectory
and worry if it comes from the south
and run to the “safe room”
But I am in Jerusalem
Surely they are not that accurate to risk
sending rockets to where their brethren share the Holy City?
I wonder what my mother thinks at 90 years
arriving in London 1941,
lying on her bed during those terrible nights in the Blitz
as Hitler’s “doodlebugs” (the V1 rockets)
primitive versions, had just enough fuel to reach London
living in fear the humming engine carrying the bomb
would stop-signifying a vertical gravity drop
on the buildings of citizens.
Here too these primitive devices end their trajectory
and just fall dead straight.
But today as I return home,
my heart is in Zhitomer
a tiny village in the Ukraine
making its name felt on the front page
announcing the rescue of its Jews
by the Jewish Agency ad their transfer to Israel.
Yet again…
Cossacks, Russians, Nazis, Ukrainian National Guards,
Eizatzgruppen….memories…
now Ukrainian right wing fascists, the new government
their descendants…
Zhitomer ah…the name sends shudders
down the spine of book collectors like me…
a city that holds the Tzion of the Rebbe Reb Zisha,
Zhitomer ah…
the printing press that took over
after the brothers Schapira
(grandchildren of the Rebbe Reb Pinchas of Koretz)
who were forced to run the gauntlet by the Tzar’s army,
and were taken away to exile
closing the Slovita printing press
and moving it to…yes, Zhitomer.
Now house to the printing of many 19th century great works
(in competition with its more powerful press run by the brothers Romm)
Once again Jews flee
but the Israeli government
has their backs covered this time,
God Bless them
they are coming to Israel on Aliyah.
Safe from the fascists
they’ll only have to contend with rockets and air raid sirens now.
The Cossacks have come again
Russian separatists, Ukrainian Nationalists?
it matters not,
Jews are no longer safe.
But my heart belongs in these little shtetleich,
Zhitomer, Mezhibuz, Breslov, Berditchev
where the romance of Hassidut housed
the “Pauline Revolution” within hidebound orthodoxy.
Where the heart, not the mind, was placed
at center of religious life and worship.
Where the revolution against fundamentalism,
dogma, doctrine and frumkeit…
by the Talmidim of the Baal Shem Tov flourished
where Jews were powerless in the body politic but masters of spirit,
where I still sense their spirit on my pilgrimages
and can find a little solace out of my own headspace.
Meanwhile in GAZA the bleeding goes on…
the images craftily used by HAMAS for PR purposes
are winning the hearts of the citizens of the world…
and CNN drinks from their fountain without objectivity.
Yet despite all the media and contrived images on social networks
despite even the unrepresented righteousness of our cause
these bleeding men women and children haunt me at night
as a Jew.
And the tears for the loss of the divine image in man
(no matter his religion or passion)
his madness or fanaticism
are shed upstairs
For the god of all religions MUST be crying no?
or what type of a deity is He, right?
these tears
ring in my heart and soul.
War…
its consequences
the collateral damage
the lives
the cost
for the sake of real estate?
really?
human blood for real estate?
like Rwanda? Northern Ireland? Cherkvenitzia?
now Gaza?
The winds of fanaticism once again
whatever the faith doctrine dogma
leave a trail of blood everywhere in their path
drops of blood forming rivers in the memory
of peoples and cultures,
ordinary citizens,
with no interest or choice in this ideological warfare.
I leave the Middle East with a heavy heart
heavily invested in my tradition
but bleeding in my heart for the blood
that has run through the streets of Gaza
and for our valiant boys
who innocently protected the homeland
30000 attend the funeral of one bright faced abductee
the public display of cohesive mourning is overwhelming.
Jerusalem is silent
the tourists fled
the streets participate in the mourning.
The complexity of Jewish history I’ll leave to Rabbi Wein
or other Art Scroll philosophers,
All I feel now is the pain of the mothers
who lost their children on both sides,
and the blood of the innocents,
all I feel now is God’s pain,
or that of the Shechinah.
Born 5 years after the Tremendum
I remain haunted
by the blood of the innocents…
the millions who died on both sides of the World Wars
screaming out to me
millions and millions
from the blood soaked soil of Europe
this is my haunting…
these are my dreams
their memory,
And still nothing new
And nothing learned
noting gained
The blood still runs easily
and Human Life is valued no more
all is sacrificed for the sake of ideology dogma and doctrine
in the name of a NEW WAVE OF FUNDAMENTALISM
needing perhaps a new message?
a new corrective?
a new Crusade perhaps.
This virus…
This war…
points to the demonic,
(how else to explain the thirst for blood and torture?)
alive and well in the hearts of men
Sammael was right (in that Yemenite Midrash)
his son Cain…
born of his fornication with Mother Eve…
Cain, now spoke within the heart of men,
he had accomplished his father’s task.
Despite Adam’s attempt to slice him into pieces and devour him,
Despite the League of Nations and the UN
and all the resolutions from the East River,
nothing has changed.
The heart remains infected with this virus.
Only the method of killing and torture has changed
the technology of the killing fields
drone warfare
and Laser Beams.
Yes, I leave Israel
with a heavy heart
(bleeding liberal I am),
for the blood that cries out from the earth of the Holy Land
the silent brave screams of those young soldiers who died in vain
and the memories of Slovita, Zhitomer, Cossacks and Nazis
and now Hamas, Holy Jihad, ISIS,
whose lessons we failed to learn
that all blood is red, now co-mingled once again in pain.
All mothers cry and die inside for their sons
either side of the fence, the wall, the border,
it’s always been that way
the children of Gaza were innocent
as were the non-combatants.
But for some doctrine, dogma or holy belief
on both sides…
that deifies and fetishizes real estate
and prefer the Napoleonic theory of “sovereign statehood”
and worship of the outdated senile European notion of states
over unique new solutions
in this world of cyberspace and global commerce that knows of no borders.
Really? Can’t we create a post modern “No State” solution?
One that refuses borders and killing machines, that “federalizes land?
Let’s return to
an experimental village type
co-existence.
Defy modernity
It brought only death.
It is not the religious divide that makes this solution impossible
it is the notion of modernity ending (we had hoped)
but still not ending, with Auschwitz
that allows for ongoing genocide war and torture.
Only when enough blood has spilled
only then, exhausted from the hemorrhage,
will both sides sit together.
Will mothers grieve finally
Until then we watch from our smartphones and screens
the networks vying for closer and closer immediacy to the frontline
reporters and photo crews “embedded”
filming, filming the ER and hospitals
the results of collateral damage
that deadens our sensitivity even further
every war…deeper into the blood,
as if CNN and BBC and Fox and AL Jazeera
are themselves complicit in allowing us
this voyeuristic juissance of blood-stained victims.
Religion and Technology
Warfare and Modernity
combine in this perfect storm
to deaden us to the real human pain
and provide a foil for the true issues
that the human heart is broken
filled with the demonic.
As if political posturing and brinkmanship
will do other than “kick the ball down the road”
So I am alone,
torn between my double refutation of the politics
and the fundamentalist delusion that
somehow our sins are an impediment to progress
that the Imminent coming of the Messiah
or the Qura’nic jihadist promises of 70 Virgins
might do anything other than harm human kindness and progress
or end the violence.
