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

Shabbat Candlesticks

On my dining table, two silver candlesticks
stand at attention, waiting
for me to light them.

My mother gave me these candlesticks,
which her mother, who died when my mother was sixteen,
had lit every Shabbat in Rhodesia,

and for years I thought my grandmother
had brought them with her on the boat, along
with my mother in her pram, her older sister, and my grandfather,

from Frankfurt to Africa in 1939, uprooting themselves,
finally understanding it was time to leave,
that they couldn’t wait for America to let them in,

after my grandfather was arrested on Kristallnacht, then
imprisoned in Buchenwald; (Germany was still allowing
Jews out of the country, if you had the right papers).

So every Friday night, I imagined my grandmother
lighting them along with me,
saw their solidity as a physical link

to my grandparents’ life in Germany,
but then my mother told me that
the German government sent these candlesticks

to my grandmother after she had fled
to Africa and settled with her husband and two little girls,
as recompense or apology

for losing all their treasured possessions –
paintings, furniture, rugs, all that fit into two trunks;
as, the Germans said, the boat carrying their belongings

was torpedoed, sunk,
everything lost at sea.
My mother said this as fact, but

I was doubtful – still,
these candlesticks were shipped,
from Germany to Bulawayo,

which means they had belonged to another
Jewish family, another German family that
likely

was marched to their death,
shot or gassed,
perhaps tricked into packing their valuables

into one suitcase and then when
they were separated from their loved ones
the suitcase was unpacked

and the candlesticks were found, then sent to
my family – a souvenir
from their homeland:

Yes, you had to leave your home,
you lost all of your possessions,
but here are these candlesticks.

Now when I light them each Shabbat I imagine besides me
my grandmother, my mother as a little girl, and also
this other family that once lit them in Frankfurt,

and other Jews that can no longer light candles –
the hostages, the murdered, and the stolen –
I imagine them all

hovering with me by the flickering flames,
bringing in the Shabbat Queen,
blessing the children,

letting the flames go out on their own,
tiny lights glowing from past Shabbats
like stars flickering with the light of stars from years before.

Until Friday night comes, the candlesticks rest
side by side on my table,
ornate curlicues and teardrops at their base

curving out in a circumference,
as if they are two proud old ladies,
grandmothers wearing shiny, billowy dresses,

weary of being uprooted again,
of crossing seas, continents, cities –
Germany to Africa to New York to Chicago –

but not complaining, no,
surviving, and counting
their blessings.

Laura Hodes writes regularly for the arts section of the Forward and frequently for other publications, including Lilith, which published a story of hers in their fall 2018 issue. She had an essay published in Allium in 2023. She studied English literature at Yale, and has a law degree from the University of Chicago. She organizes literary readings of Jewish writers at Chicago Loop Synagogue.

Featured image in this post:020210821 135240 Sanok County in the 20th century, Jewish Shabbat Table, Silar, creative commons via wikimedia commons.

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

the death of hope

and this,
she tells me,
might be the saddest part:

the kibbutzim burned,
the inhabitants reduced
to anonymous ashes,

the parents of those
innocent babies
ripped from their beds,

the elderly dragged like rag-dolls
tossed on motorcycles,
chained in dark tunnels,

the young women raped
mercilessly, repeatedly,
blood streaming down their legs,

that young man who had
his arm blown off, the
youth who were just
trying to dance,

they were the peacemakers,
the yearners, the dreamers,
the ones who would drive
Palestinians across the border for medical treatment,
the ones who organized soccer games
to unite Israeli and Palestinian children,
they were the ones
who were on “their sides”
the true pro-Palestine;

and now
she says,
despair haunting her eyes,

they’re dead.

these days

here are our days, every day:
wake up. remember. pain in my chest.
pray I don’t see the names of
our cousins, our friends
on the list of the dead.
feel guilty because why should any
mother-brother-father-husband-wife
have to suffer that?
why should any of us feel relief
when every single one of them is family?

these days
the pain beats
like an extra heart
a pain twice desecrated
when people I used to call friends
only fill their Instagram stories
with “free Palestine”
and it never ends with
“from Hamas”

and they never march to free the
240 innocents ripped from their
homes, their cribs, their beds and
they never condemn the horrific
torture, rape, slaughter of young
men and women who just wanted
to dance.

is it because they’re ignorant?
is it the news’ bias?
did they just join the bandwagon of blame?
(is it still that easy, a mere 80 years after “never again?”)
if it weren’t my family, my friends, my nation
would I fall into the same trap?

or do they really hate us so much
that they can justify
the hunting down of innocents
as long as those innocents bear
a blue and white stamp?
i’m constantly oscillating between
pain-hurt-rage
constantly begging for at least
a silent majority
that’s quietly enraged

desperate for reassurance that
it’s just the extremists
that most know the difference
between a four year-old child
stolen from her bed
and an adult in jail
for stabbing

because anything’s better
than knowing that they saw
this all happen
that they understand
and still—again—
they turned away;
still—again—
they ignored it.

anything’s better
than wondering
if they actually do hate
us that much,
actually do
hate me.

prove me wrong.
please.
i’m begging.

there are no words in English
for this despair; only
from the ancients:
“zeakah”—
a primal scream.

in the merit of our forefathers
genesis 22:1-18

and it came to pass
after Abraham had
faced the flames
and the famine,
abandoned his father’s land,
fought the four and five,
endangered his wife,
sent away his firstborn son
to starve in the desert sun,

that’s when the G-d of Justice
threw the real test at him,
asked him to offer up
his only remaining love,
as if his own scarred flesh
wasn’t enough.

and how could he turn back,
after all of that?
so early in the morning
he arose, saddled his ass,
plucked along his two servants
and his beloved son,
flung the wood into his sack.

hey came to the place
after three days
and Yitzhak stood, stunned,
as his father solemnly
arranged the wood.

there’s never a good time
to become a sacrifice,
so Abraham withdrew
the knife
without delay,
hoping that the protests
of the Merciful One
might stand in his way.

but this time
even the Mercy of Heaven
could not deign to stop him,
HaShem turned away His face
and only His angels were left
to prevent the bloodbath.

but though the boy lay
heaving on the table,
the breath of life
still in his struggling lungs,
it was already
too late.
the damage
had been done
for generations
to come.

by Myself, I swear,
declared the no longer Merciful One,
that because you have done this
and not held back your son,
your only son, the one you loved,
forever will your children suffer.

through your descendants,
every single nation of the earth
will single you out
for persecution and annihilation,
without repentance or regret.

just as you did not show mercy
to your own flesh and blood
your people will receive the mercy
of no one, forever damned
to face blame.

this will not be the last altar you will build,
you will not be the last parent to lay weeping
over your child’s lifeless body.
forever will your children
be condemned as sacrifices.

and Abraham called that place,
“The G-d of Mercy will see,”
but that G-d of Mercy was
never again witnessed,
and that altar
became the place
of our national
unraveling.

Danielle Fisher’s work has been published in Valiant Scribe, The Sunlight Press, Intrinsick Magazine, JewishFiction.net, The Jewish Literary Journal, JOFA Journal, Poetica, Hevria Magazine, and Aish.com. Her fiction manuscript about a small Jewish town who discovers their Torah magically growing– for which she is currently seeking publication–was recognized as the winning historical fiction manuscript of the Writer League of Texas’ 2020 Manuscript Contest and a finalist in the fantasy category. Additionally, her short story, “Soles and Souls,” excerpted from the manuscript, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. You can read her work at danielleresh.com.

Featured image in this post: The first soccer match on the Y.M.C.A. athletic field in Jerusalem: finals of the Palestine police, GPO photographer, creative commons via wikimedia commons.

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

Curses & Courtship
               for my grandparents, Portia Heyert and Roy Perry

My grandmother called her future husband her “big Mick”
in a letter to her best friend;

my grandfather called himself “Roy the goy”
to her shocked Jewish relatives and friends.

The things their divided family & friends must have said to each other.
To my grandparents?

The tough words and ugly slurs that were used in Depression era NYC,
to ward off crossing cultural boundaries, keep folks in their separate boxes:

Mick. Goy. New York: everybody together, cheek by jowl, knowing and
competing with neighbors by naming each other ‘other.’

She: 5’1”, he 5’6”; he called her “Shorty.” She: culturally Jewish, raised atheist
in the Bronx. (Her father gave her an Italian name: Portia. Easier

to pass as non-Jewish. Not that Italians
had it easy. He’d thought easier. He’d fled Russian pogroms,

knew his name’s dangers, had suffered for the prejudice against his ancestors’ religion,
the ruling classes’ restriction codes – wanted better for his daughter,

taught her that names matter, told her she was named
for the brave woman in Shakespeare who spoke for mercy.)

She joked
with that Scottish-Irish red-headed elevator boy who became her “big Mick”

from the first time they met in her bookstore on Waverly Place,
using even others’ caustic words as a bridge to bring them together.

Being Othered

         after reading Natasha Trethewey’s “Enlightenment”

When what’s true for you is always counted out:
      denied, attacked, to be driven off,
driven away, forced out.

But what I remember (it’s so hazy now, not even like
     my experience, but I know it was me)
when I was thirteen

how in L.A., where my dad still lived, to Jason’s friends
     I wasn’t Jewish enough, because I didn’t speak Hebrew,
didn’t go to Temple, didn’t get bar mitzvahed

but in the rural small town where mom moved us to
     I was too Jewish just by existing,
having my last name suspected,

making me at odds with everyone,
     with their accusing questions
for the monster in the zoo

Is it true Jews believe they are the Chosen People? Meaning,
     how can your freaky people be so stupid not to know only Christians
go to Heaven, all your people go to Hell?

hearing the gunfire every Sunday morning
     from the other side of the valley, our new neighbors explaining it
that’s just the KKK teaching their kids how to shoot

the attempts to convert me,
     unbelieving any other faith than theirs
could be respected

the nightmares in high school: dreaming the Klansfolk in white hoods
     were gathered outside in the middle of the night, the house already on fire
me too late, too slow, to get to my baby sister’s room in time to get her out.

that time after college, when I couldn’t comprehend
     how my family still kept pushing me
to move back to that little town.

How later, the most famous local Klansman, a former Grand Dragon
     was driven out by his own money troubles
after his conviction in the wrongful death lawsuit.

Decades after I’d got so used to being othered, after I learned
     to accept all of me as others couldn’t, with that internal self-acceptance
that has lasted longer even than the hiding habits I’d developed to protect my family then,

now, walking my sister’s baby girls through another angry neighborhood,
     Trump signs and confederate flags,
my three year old niece holds one of my hands as the other

pushes the infant’s stroller, nursemaid dog on leash, our hardy crew
     of walkers staying carefully off the edges of the roads
without sidewalks as cars race too fast around the mountain curves.

Daniel H.R. Fishman, a native Californian – on one side the fifth generation raised in California, and on another the grandson of a New Yorker – is a writer from a family of writers. His book of poetry and creative nonfiction, Everyday Sublime, was published by Garden Oak Press. His work has appeared or is forthcoming from California Quarterly, the San Diego Poetry Annual, the Paterson Literary Review, The Walrus, Cherry Blossom Review, and Bear Creek Haiku.

Featured image in this post: Bookstore in Greenwich Village @ 1030 PM (4592975331), Paul Sableman, creative commons via wikimedia commons.

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

An Apology to my Grandfather

I called you Gloom and Doom
when I was ten.
You pressed your face against
the television screen,
watched the McCarthy hearings.

In high school I studied psychology.
I was sure you were paranoid.

You stripped my Kennedy
sticker from my old Plymouth.
The bumper sticker
would upset the neighbors you said.
By “upset” you meant they would
know we were Democrats
and maybe even guess we were Jews.

For me, America
was a bright balloon I could win
and wave. I hung out at Santa Monica
Beach hoping for a glance of
the handsome Presidential candidate.
You came to America
when you were thirteen.
Officials at Ellis Island
changed your last name
to Heyert. After McCarthy
Heyert wasn’t safe enough.
Without telling your wife
or your brothers and sister
you became Mr. Taylor.

Your siblings were upset.
You donned a prayer shawl
and a yarmulke, had me snap
a picture to prove to them
you were still a Jew.

You sat outside, under an arbor
of bougainvillea. You sipped your glass
of tea. I joked you imagined Cossacks,
riding their horses, coming
for you.

Grandpa, you were right to be afraid.
Nazis murdered Jews in The Tree of Life
synagogue in Pittsburgh,
and just a few miles from me in a Chabad
in Poway.

Your great great grandson is in a
college where someone posted
a swastika on a dorm room door.

I picture myself sitting in a
safe, grassy park and telling him
he should change his last name.

I’ve been nominated for a Pushcart Prize six times, by six different publishers. Garden Oak Press has published two of my poetry books, Santa Monica Disposal and Salvage and Woman with Newspaper Shoes. My poetry has appeared in many publications, including in California Quarterly in the 1970’s, as well as Lilith, Poetry International, San Diego Poetry Annual, Paterson Literary Review, and Limestone Circle. My novel Selling Pencils and Charlie was a finalist in the San Diego Book Awards. I was the prose editor at Knot Literary Magazine for ten years. In the early 1970’s, I was one of the first female screenwriting fellows at the American Film Institute; a screenplay I wrote there became a film on PBS.

Featured image in this post: Bougainvillea in Shenzhen,GuangDong China(32), Dinkun Chen, creative commons via wikimedia commons.

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

Absence

My people have aged prematurely
Our bowed heads are peppered with
Grey and white hairs.

Grey,
A mixture of ashes
and gunpowder.

White,
like body bags
and prayer shawls.

Even our children have aged
And who can blame them?

Our entire nation is grieving.

For those who went to dance
and lost
their legs,
their lives,

For the holocaust survivors
murdered
alongside the unborn .

For the thousands slain in cold blood.

For the hostages-
for the unspeakable things done to them.

Our graying hair is a small price to pay

for the unbearable weight

of their absence.

Cain and Abel

Don’t imagine the scene-
two brothers,
one with a rock,
battering,
searching.

Don’t look for the blood,
The ground is weeping,
The supple earth crusted.

Can you feel his eyes,
Racing
feverish and wild-
Does regret soften finality?

Cain’s shaking hands,
Gather his brother’s
Dried blood.

He paints
his forehead
with a
bloody
Letter.

The ugly mark
is not just for Cain.
Cursed-
he can never forget

Remember,
We each harbor monsters.
We sharpen jagged rocks.
Who has not drunk the poison?

But there was a moment,
long enough to hold one’s breath,
where everything could have
changed.

Imagine Abel whole,
Imagine him raising children,
imagine Cain and Abel
growing old.

Rachel Feld-Reichner received her MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults from VCFA. Poetry was her first love and though she writes across genres she always circles back to poetry. Her poems have been published in English and Hebrew. When she is not writing she works as a doula and women’s health advocate while raising her beautiful boys.

Featured image in this post: Jacopo Tintoretto – The Murder of Abel – WGA22654, Jacopo Tintoretto, creative commons via wikimedia commons.