This past week I had the pleasure of visiting the Muslim Community Center school (MCC) in Morton Grove, IL to witness an inspiring session of Poetry Pals in action.

PP is a non-profit that brings children together from diverse and interfaith communities for partnership, expression and friendship through poetry, spoken word, music and art. At this particular workshop, fourth graders from MCC, Solomon Schecter Jewish Day School and Sacred Heart Catholic School gathered together in the MCC gym. After a brief learning session and tour from the principal, they came back together to get to know one another by engaging in a variety of creative poetry writing exercises.

So simple and yet so very powerful.  With news about religious intolerance blaring at us from every corner, I wish I could start every day this way: watching children wearing hijabs, kippot and Catholic school uniforms talking, playing, laughing and writing poetry together.  I am so grateful to PP founder (and JRC member) Donna Yates for inviting me to witness their sacred handiwork.

Local efforts such as Poetry Pals are eminently worthy of our support. Click here to do so.

when you oppress the stranger you
oppress yourselves for
all the land
is mine
and all you are all
just strangers resident
upon it
this land is
no ones land
this land is your
burial ground

from “Epitaphs”

Written on a slat of a railway car:

If some time someone should find pearls
threaded on a blood-red string of silk
which, near the throat, runs all the thinner
like life’s own path until it’s gone
somewhere in a fog and can’t be seen—

If someone should find these pearls
let him know how—cool, aloof—they lit up
the eighteen-year-old, impatient heart
of the Paris dancing girl, Marie.

Now, dragged through unknown Poland—
I’m throwing my pearls through the grate.

If they’re found by a young man—
let these pearls adorn his girlfriend.
If they’re found by a girl—
let her wear them; they belong to her.
And if they’re found by an old man—
let him, for these pearls, recite a prayer.

Translated by Jacqueline Osherow

This Saturday night, 1/9, at the Chopin Theatre, 8:00 pm, the good folks at Kfar Jewish Arts Center are collaborating with Zeek to present “Dvarim”, a program described as “an exploration of written, spoken and performed words by artists examining the contemporary Jewish experience.”

Dvarim will feature readings and performances by the hip-hop poet extraordinaire, Kevin Coval, beatboxer Yuri Lane, rabbi-poet Menachem Cohen, poet/writer Dina Elenbogen and conceptual identity artist Maya Escobar. This is a truly incredible collection of Chicago Jewish artistic talent and it promises to be an unforgettable evening. (As the rabbi of JRC, I’m proud to say that both Maya and Menachem grew up in our congregation…)

Then on Sunday 1/10 at 2:30 pm, I’ll be participating on the panel, “Jewish Bloggers: Conscience Over Complicity.” I’m honored to to sit alongside two of my very favorite bloggers in the world: Cecilie Surasky from MuzzleWatch and Adam Horowitz from Mondoweiss. The program is being organized by the Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine and will take place at the Oak Park Library.

Have a great weekend – hope I’ll be seeing you!

Though I’d heard of some of these poets, I was unfamiliar with the remarkable depth and breadth of this particular genre.  It’s a diverse collection with one critical aspect in common: all these poems express a powerful voice of protest against Israel’s oppressive treatment of Palestinians dating back to the days of the First Intifada. The collection felt to me like nothing other than forty-two poets letting loose one singular prophetic howl of rage and sorrow over what their nation has wrought.

And like all protest poetry, this is art that clearly seeks to transform. As the editors write in introduction:

The ethical stand taken by the poets and poems of this anthology represents today the minority position – a minority that is seen by the majority of the Jewish Israeli public as “self-hating” and as desecrators of sacred ideals. And still, throughout history, literary creations have expressed  the forbidden and revolutionary and have preceded – in fact precipitated – changes in attitudes and societal norms. The day will come when the poems collected in With an Iron Pen will be read as the voice of reason and of honest hearts in dark times.

I see something quintessentially Jewish in the inner struggle reflected these poems – and at the same time, the tradition of protest they draw upon is so clearly universal.  I can’t help but think that these works represent, in their way, a contemporary form of sacred text.

Check out Richard Silverstein’s wonderful review for Tikkun. Click below for two of my particular favorites from the collection:

“Order of the Day”

Remember
that which
Amalek did,
to you of course,
Over.
Do unto Amalek
what Amalek
did, to you
of course, Over.

If you can’t
find yourself
an Amalek, call
Amalek whomever
you want to do
to him what
Amalek did,
to you of course,
Over.

Don’t compare
anything
to what Amalek
did, to you
of course, Over.
Not when
you want to do
that which
Amelek did,
to you of course,
Over and Out,
Remember.

- Yitzhak Laor (translated by Gabriel Levin)

___________________________________________

“Then We Didn’t Yet Know”

Then we didn’t yet know
That the Occupation would be forever.
Even when it would be forcibly extracted like a tooth
and tossed behind electric fences
and magnetic crossings
while cement and petrol magnates
traveled from Ramallah to Gaza -
even then it would be remembered longingly -
how young it was, the Occupation,
composed only of Arab women bent over tomatoes
in Jewish fields, men with nylon bags
waiting for work at Ashkelon junction,
jumping into grey service Peugots,
and the Secret Service men who lived three to a villa in Afridar
actually changing their license plates to army license plates before
going off to work, so they wouldn’t be identified.
It was young. In the restaurants they peeled vegetables into large tins, then
fried them, built on scaffolds. There were many organizations.
And they were young:
volunteers with Chinese weapons, poets,
but the Occupation didn’t recognize them,
because it was busy arguing in the classroom whether to return territories or not
and Ofer P., whose father was wounded in the battlel of Jenin,
and had shrapnel stuck in his back
said, “In any case, there’ll be another war.”
That’s what his father taught him.
That’s how young the Occupation was,
and look at it now.

Dahlia Falah (translated by Rachel Tzvia Back)

From today’s Ha’aretz:

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has struck a secret deal with Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman for highly contentious construction on West Bank land known as E1, Army Radio reported Wednesday.

While this might not seem like major news to some, this report, if true, would be devastating to the peace process (such as it is…)  In fact, settling E1 might well constitute the final nail in the coffin of the two state solution.

“E1″ stands for East 1 – it is the administrative title given to the area east of Jerusalem and west of the West Bank development Ma’ale Adumim (see map above). Israeli settlement monitors such as Ir Amim and Peace Now have long cautioned against the dire consequences of settling this critical strip of land:

Construction of E-1 would jeopardize the hopes for a two-state solution.  It would, by design, block off the narrow undeveloped land corridor which runs east of Jerusalem and which is necessary for any meaningful future connection between the southern and the northern parts of the West Bank.  It would thus break the West Bank into two parts – north and south.  It would also sever access to East Jerusalem for Palestinians in the West Bank, and sever access to the West Bank for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. Both of these situations are antithetical to the achievement of any real, durable peace agreement and the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.

The expansion of Ma’ale Adumim, as with the expansion of any other settlement, is a unilateral act which undermines and jeopardizes efforts to resume negotiations which are based on the principal of two states living side by side with peace and security.

It’s not such a stretch to imagine Netanyahu blithely giving E1 away to Lieberman as a political bargaining chip – he’s been hankering after this piece of earth of some time now. In fact, back in 2005 he choose a barren hilltop in E1 upon which to announce his candidacy for Prime Minister. This is what he had to say at the time:

This is Jerusalem, it’s our capital…Nobody can tell us to freeze building in our capital. What we need to do is to break this siege by building here.

You can see all of E1 quite easily from the top of Mt. Scopus. It’s beyond sobering to think the fate of the peace process might well hand upon a mere 12 square kilometers.

Trust me, this will be one to follow…

PS: Click here to send a letter to Secretary of State Clinton to ask her to make a settlement freeze a necessary part of the peace process going forward.

Here’s the most beautiful response to this huge ugly mess I’ve yet to encounter: images of tragedy in Gaza and Sderot set against a poem by the great Persian poet Rumi.

Here’s the text:

Move beyond any attachment to
names.
Every war and every conflict between
human beings
has happened because of some
disagreement about names.
It’s such an unnecessary foolishness,
because just beyond the arguing
there’s a long table of companionship,
set and waiting for us to sit down.
What is praised is one, so the praise is
one too,
many jugs being poured into a huge
basin.
All religions, all this singing, one song.
The differences are just illusion and
vanity.
Sunlight looks slightly different on this
wall than it does on that wall.
and a lot different on this other one,
but it is still one light.
We have borrowed these clothes,
these time-and-space personalities,
from a light,
and when we praise,
we pour them back in.

We’ve spent the last two days in Shiraz – and among other things our experience in this beautiful city gave us a still deeper into to Persia’s soul.

We’ve been told that while Esfahan is generally considered to represent Iran’s historical spirit, Shiraz reflects Iran’s cultural spirit. Indeed, while Iran is an Islamic Republic, Islam is not the only defining aspect of Iranian identity.

Among our many visits in Shiraz was a visit to Zoastrian Fire Temple. Zoastrianism was the religion of the ancient Persian empire and remained so until the Arab conquest converted Persia to Islam in the 7th century. Today, although the active Zoastrian community of Iran is extremely small (there are approximately 1,000 in the country) it continues to occupy an important place in Persian culture. All Iranians regardless of their religion identify with the traditions of Zoastrianism, which is in a sense regarded to be their “native religious culture.” The festival of Yalda, which occurs during the Winter Solstice and Noruz, the two week spring celebration of the Zoastrian New Year, are universally popular national holidays.

It would have been extremely interesting to dialogue with members of the Zoastrian community, but alas, we learned at the last minute that they were not available to meet us at the Temple. Still, it has been impossible for us to ignore the impact of this ancient religion upon present day Iran. The image of Ahura Mazda, the Zoastrian God, is ubiquitous throughout the country, not only at the ancient ruins of Persepolis (above), but on travel signs, office buildings and souvenir stands.

An interesting anecdote in this regard: when we were at Mofid University in Qom, one young student of Islam proudly showed me his Ahura Mazda necklace, and told me this image was an important part of his history. When I asked if any of his clerical teachers objected, he emphatically shook his head. “It is an important part of our history,” he said. To be sure, more than one person has told us that the Islamic regime is lenient about such things because it understands the importance role Zoastrianism plays in the cultural life of Persia

Another central aspect of the Iranian collective soul, of course, is their poetry. Iranians are justifiably proud of their literary tradition; every Iranian child is read Ferdowsi’s epic “Shahnameh” as well as national poets such as Hafez, Saadi and Rumi.  The more time we spend here, the more I realize we can never underestimate the depth of pride that Iranians have in their national/cultural traditions. It is a modern-day nation can literally experience its own history back across thousands and thousands of years. And though they have been dominated by countless empires over the centuries, they have never surrendered their unique connection their culture, their heritage, their history, their language.

This is something that is very difficult for Americans in particular to grasp – our national history goes back little more than 200 years and most of us ultimately originate from somewhere else. While we study American history, our connection to it is nowhere near as profound at that of Iranians to theirs’.  At the same time, for most Americans, Iran is just another Islamic nation in the Middle East. However, you have only to spend a small amount of time here to understand that this country is much, much more.

I’m sure this sounds like a cliché, but it’s true: in order to understand Iranians, you must understand their poetry. Or at the very least, to their deep connection to their poetry that truly sings in their soul. For example, among the most important cultural landmarks in Iran are the tombs of their poets, which serve as almost quasi-sacred sites. Last night we went to two of the most important in Shiraz: the Tomb of Saadi and of Hafez. I’m still at bit mind-blown by our experience at Hafez’s tomb in particular (top pic), which was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s an immensely popular site for Iranians, particularly young Iranian young people, whose idea of a great evening is to visit Hafez’s tomb and read his spiritually passionate poems of wine, longing and romance (see below). It’s also something of a romantic hot spot, where young people can mingle, meet and (I imagine) maybe even get lucky…

We’ve heard that the social atmosphere in Shiraz is a bit looser than in other Iranian cities, and that the regime’s “Morality Police” tend to let things go there a bit more easily. And apparently the Tomb of Hafez is one of the few places in Iran where young people of the opposite sex can mingle together publically without few of official harassment.

This certainly seemed to be the case last night. Throngs gathered near and around the crypt, reading poems, laughing and chatting. We spent a fair amount of time meeting and talking to folks and wouldn’t you know it, inevitably someone from our group got hit upon. Sarah Bassin reported later that a young man approached her, asked her where she was from, told her about how bad his marriage was, then proclaimed to her: “Your face is delicious.”

After teasing Sarah mercilessly about her quintessentially Persian encounter, we all agreed that our brief sojourn at Hafez’s tomb was unexpectedly and deeply moving. I’d say there is much we Americans can learn from a culture as profound as this one.

Jacob left Be’ersheva and set out for Haran. He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he placed it under his head and lay down in that place. He had a dream… (Genesis 28:10)

“Temporary Poem of My Time” by Yehuda Amichai (translated from Hebrew by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav):

Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west,
Latin writing, from west to east.
Languages are like cats:
You must not stroke their hair the wrong way.
The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert,
the trees bend in the wind,
and stones fly from all four winds,
into all four winds. They throw stones,
throw this land, one at the other,
but the land always falls back to the land.
They throw the land, but you can’t get rid of it.
Its stones, its soil, but you can’t get rid of it.

They throw stones, throw stones at me
in 1936, 1938, 1948, 1988,
Semites throw stones at Semites and ant-Semites at anti-Semites,
evil men throw and just men throw,
sinners throw and tempters throw,
geologists throw and theologists throw,
archaeologists throw and archhooligans throw,
kidneys throw stones and gall bladders throw,
head stones and forehead stones and the heart of a stone,
stones shaped like a screaming mouth
and stones fitting your eyes
like a pair of glasses,
the past throws stones at the future,
and all of them fall on the present.
Weeping stones and laughing gravel stones,
even God in the Bible threw stones,
even the Urim and Tumim were thrown
and got stuck in the breastplate of justice,
and Herod threw stones and what came out was a Temple.

Oh the poem of stone sadness
Oh the poem thrown on the stones
Oh the poem of thrown stones.
Is there in this land
a stone that was never thrown
and never built and never overturned
and never uncovered and never discovered
and never screamed from a wall and never discarded by the builders
and never closed on top of a grave and never lay under lovers
and never turned into a cornerstone?

Please do not throw any more stones,
you are moving the land,
the holy, whole. open land,
you are moving it to the sea
and the sea doesn’t want it
the sea says, not in me.

Please throw little stones,
throw snail fossils, throw gravel,
justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tzedek,
throw soft stones, throw sweet clods,
throw limestone, throw clay,
throw sand of the seashore,
throw dust of the desert, throw rust,
throw soil, throw wind,
throw air, throw nothing
until your hands are weary
and the war is weary
and even peace will be weary and will be.

Please participate in the upcoming Global Days For Darfur – you can find information at SaveDarfur.org. I also encourage you to check out “Crisis In Darfur,” the remarkable and important new project by Google Earth and The United States Holocaust Museum. “Crisis” is the first project of the Museum’s “Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative” that will include information on potential genocides allowing citizens, governments, and institutions to access information on atrocities in their nascent stages and respond.

May the memory of the lost be for a blessing.

Shema

by Primo Levi

You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:

Consider whether this is a man,
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no.
Consider whether this is a woman,
Without hair or name
With no more strength to remember
Eyes empty and womb cold
As a frog in winter.

Consider that this has been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your hearts
When you are in your house, when you walk on your way,
When you go to bed, when you rise.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house crumble,
Disease render you powerless,
Your offspring avert their faces from you.

Translated by Ruth Feldman And Brian Swann

What Would You Do?

by Emtithal Mahmoud

What would you do if
your town was bombed

And everything near it was gone?

What would you do if
you were cold and alone,

And cast to the streets without a home?

What would you do if
someone killed your mom and dad?

And you had lost everything you had?

What would you do if
you were shattered and broken

Because you have witnessed
the unspoken?

If you run, where would you go?

If you died, would anyone know?

I myself would pray
And hope for a better day.