Two poems by Avishai Edenburg

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The poems in this post are part of a special section, curated by Ori Z Soltes and Robert Bettmann, The Jewish Experience.

Kaddish to Eretz Ashkenaz

The slender, intricate facades of painted European towns
As pretty and tall as brave soldiers
In long coats, with a loyal dog, a proud eagle flapping
Standing on the back of victory

Holy victory! The chazan is silent, the cheder is closed,
The letters of The Book came back home to roost.
Vo iz mayn loshn, mayn haym?
Mayn mishpukhe iz a vey fon a beyn vos iz nit mer

Yiddish is to German what a butter knife is to a scalpel
It is a crude language made for bitter wit, bitter cursing
And a helpless bitterness at the cruelty of the world

My language is a language of barbarians with swords
A language of fighting, a language of sneering
A language of not giving a fuck
A sword to the scalpel

Too late, and at what cost?
I am not I, my people are made dead flesh wearing plastic coats that look like skin
Or is this who we were always meant to be?
Peel an Ashkenazi of the white and blue-
As empty as the Treblinkan groves

The tall, tall trees of Northern Europe
The snow-capped mountains
The far-reaching fields
Do not miss the sound of Yiddish
The nigun of a long-murdered chazan



The Eternal Fugue

Your ashen hair, Shulamith.
When they took Yochanan’s head,
His Yod became an Iota,
His Jude became a Jötunn.
They passed his black locks
Through the Philosopher’s Stone,
And it turned out Nibelung Gold.

My golden locks, Shulamith.
I am Grimm’s Outlaw,
I have been made to feel a stranger
In any home I choose,
And no chair is right.
A rat that looks like a gentile,
A Jew with a butcher’s face.

Everyone wants a piece of the Jew,
And the Jew wants a piece of nothing,
A peace of nothing,
A piece of you.
Your ashen hair, Shulamith.

Your ember hair, Shulamith.
Daughter of Edom and David.
That red, red thing,
Precious beyond northern gold,
They burned it all to ash.

My ashen roots, Shulamith.
They burned it all into gold,
A field of rapeseed in the sun.

Your ashen hair, Brünnhilde.
He hath disgraced you and deceived you,
What should be his sufferance, the German’s humility?

Why, revenge, by his instruction.
Bring me his head on a plate, Allfather.
Give me his lips to kiss.

Your golden hair Portia, your Ashen hair Jessica.
They stole his Rhineland Gold and then
They tore away his flesh.

The knight does not love you, Rebecca,
Like the stormtrooper yearns for your flesh.
He’ll steal you away, he’ll burn you with passion,
He’ll die for the sake of your hair.
Your ashen hair Rebecca, Rowena’s golden locks.

Your ashen hair, Margrete,
As schwarz as your maiden name.
They stole all your gold and tore off your flesh,
They killed all the gods
And took off your head.

Their golden blaze, Shulamith.
They always come by night.
They take of your flesh,
And they take of your hair,
They pass it through your
Philosopher’s Womb.
My golden hair, Margrete.

The golden sun, Shulamith,
Has set upon the Rhine.
Your ember currents, o river,
That red, red gold
In that grim white land,
Where hunters kill monsters for sport.
Your golden hair, Cinderella.

Avishai Edenburg is an Israeli, an American, and a grandchild to Holocaust survivors from Hungary. He writes poetry in English and Hebrew about the intersections of Israeli, Jewish and Ashkenazi identities, atheism and tradition, and, occasionally, beauty and personal pain.

Featured image in this post: Sarajevo, Ashkenazi Synagogue (5), Dans, creative commons via wikimedia commons.

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