The people who dance with their book (Forest Rain)

Who are these people, who dance with their book?

A book created before humanity knew what books are,
A book that is really five books, written out by hand, on one long scroll.
Every single letter must be perfect.
Written exactly the way it was always written.
Otherwise the writing must begin anew.

These people, the Others of the world called them, the “People of the Book”
Because their book defined them, told them how to live,
How to be a people.
And gave life to the modern world.

These people, my people, dance with our book once a year.
We have a special holiday for that – to rejoice in our book.
Dancing in circles, outside, in public,
Embracing the book, like a child carried by his or her parent,
Encouraging our children to join in,
To see this moment as one of sweetness and joy as well
Because they are the ones who will make sure this Book lives on.

Joy is a simple but profound emotion.
Not one usually evoked by a book.
But this is not “a book”, it is “The Book.”
This is the book of life, of civilization, of morality and humanity.

Like life itself, this book is cyclical.
We read it every year
And when we complete it, we rejoice.
And start again, from the beginning.

Every week there is a different chapter to read.
Always in the same order.
Always at the same time of year.
Always the same and yet, different every time.

At different times in life, the same wisdom is understood differently.
We learn and take away different messages, in varying depths of comprehension.
All are good, all are of value.
It is the journey that counts, the struggle to gain in wisdom
And begin the next year, better.

The people who dance with their book are people, dancing with life.
Rejoicing in the cycle of life, growing as individuals, together as a community,
One generation to the next. 

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No other land would cling to a Jew (Forest Rain)

This poem is the documentation of a modern miracle, brought forth out of the sheer stubbornness of a people and their relationship with a land that is just as stubborn.

In 1946, under the British Mandate, it was discovered that the Jewish community of Biriya, next to Tzfat, had stockpiled weapons. The British felt that Jews could not be allowed this freedom (self-determination) and decided to demolish the community. An order was given that declared the area “military territory” in which Jews were not allowed to live. The Jewish leadership saw this as an unprecedented infringement on the right to settle Jewish land and decided they would not relinquish their rights or the land.

Thousands of Jews flooded in to Biryia. The British army fought them off. With unwavering determination, another wave of Jews came, their numbers so great that the British were overwhelmed. The mighty army simply gave up.

Natan Alterman witnessed the victory over the British and the re-establishment of Biryia. The poem he wrote describing the event, so powerfully captured the relationship between the Jews and the Land that the British censorship would not allow it to be published in the newspaper (so it was published a few months later in a book!).

It was clear that the Jews would not give up on their land. Or was it the land who would not relinquish her Jews?

Biriya’s Earth \ Natan Alterman

Three times the British army uprooted Biriya’s fences,

And they were replaced. The local people and the hundreds who flocked

And came to their aid threw themselves on to the ground, and the soldiers

Labored to shake them and uproot them by force from the land of Mount Canaan.

He flattened the full height of his body in the field,

And his eye flashed like a knife.

And the earth craggy, wild, ancient

Clung to him, caught and held him.

The army was given the order: "Shake him, take him from here!

Against his will, we will make him stand on his feet!”

But the earth, the craggy and bold devil’s daughter,

Did not want to let him go.

On his face and back they rolled him

They pulled him.

Dragged him by the arm.

But that day the craggy earth would not allow

His body to be ripped off of her.

And three time he was ripped

And thrown back

And made to rise and thrown back

Because the craggy earth, the grey daughter of demons,

Chased him and growled.

And three time he was ripped

And thrown back

And three times she vowed to him,

And three times the fence was uprooted

And three times the fence was put back in place.

Then the witnesses said: I declare

Other lands are beautifully attired

But,

No other land would cling

To the body of a Jewish person in this way!

As the army withdrew, a boy said softly:

The army did not shoot this time.

But they could have, today with their bullets, you know,

Disconnected me from you, Land of Rage.

She answered him with a laugh, the craggy, the salty [earth]:

Even had a bullet split your brow,

They could not have disconnected your body from me,

Because then, you would have stayed with me till eternity.

The land Alterman described is not the land of plenty the Jews in exile dreamt of, the Zion he described is not flowing with milk and honey, she is harsh and difficult. She is grey, craggy and salty – a land almost impossible to draw fruit from, one not made for agriculture. Another man might give up on such a land, searching for easier, prettier shores. But not the Jew.

What other land would cling so to a Jewish person?

Ancient and wild, the land has claimed us for her own.

As the poem describes, try as they might, the British were unable to disconnect the Jew from the land. Understanding the danger, the Jewish boy tells the land, “they could have killed me and broken our connection.” The land, knowing better, answers: “even your death will not part us.”

For better or for worse, even death will not part us.

There are many beautiful places in the world but there is only one place on earth that the land clings to the Jew.

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David Shambadal's poem responding to Arabs burning forests, right before Arabs murdered him in 1936

David Shambadal was an electrician who went to a cafe in Jaffa to fix the lights on April 19, 1936.

He was hacked to pieces by a group of Arabs upon arrival.

Right before he was murdered, Shambadal left a message for us, today.

A few hours before his death, Shambadal wrote a stirring poem. His poem was a response to Arabs setting forests on fire and uprooting trees. 

From the Bnai Brith Messenger, August 14, 1936:

But April 1936 was only the beginning of Arabs using fire as a weapon against Jews. 

Arab terrorists didn't just come up with the idea of setting fires. They've been doing it a long time. But the biggest spree of arson occurred in 1936.

From JTA, April 29, 1936:

From JTA, May 6, 1936:

Palcor news agency, May 29, 1936:

Palestine Post, May 31, 1936:

Palestine Post, July 1, 1936:

Now, who loves the land - and who wants to burn it?

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Belgium's poet laureate publishes another antisemitic poem

Earlier this year I reported on (and gave samples) of the antisemitic poetry of Belgium's Poet Laureate  whose pen-name is Charles Ducal.  His poetry includes equating Israeli Jews to Nazis, invoking the idea of "chosen people"  as meaning that Jews think of themselves as better than everyone else, and frequent references to the ashes of the crematoria against the lives of Palestinian Arabs today.

Joods Actueel reports that Ducal has just written another similar poem for what is happening in Gaza, and is being criticized by another popular Belgian poet:

Benno Barnard picks up on the derogatory way his colleague Charles Ducal writes about Jews. Below is a poem of Ducal's that appeared in in the newspaper De Morgen and on the website of the communist Labour Party. According to Barnard, the content is not only "offensive and hurtful" but involves "aestheticized hatred".

"This poem hurts me deeply, and I'm not even a Jew, let alone an Orthodox one. It is unacceptable that a Poet Laureate, who basically is the poet of all Belgians, in such a fashion antagonizes thousands of compatriots, not only on an extremist left-wing website but also in a national newspaper which is read by more than one Antwerp Jew," writes Barnard.

"Ducal may not understand well how deeply insulting this poem is for every ordinary Belgian Jew , even a Jew who is possibly an opponent of Netanyahu. He probably doesn't understand how humiliating it is to hear Jews as thinking they are "better", which is not the meaning of that infamous word "chosen" (forgive me, Charles, but I know a little Hebrew, and "chosen" means "designated as volunteers", which equates approximately to 'chosen to be damned.')

"Why doesn't Ducal write a poem against young Muslims in our streets, who wave ISIS flags in a frenzy against Israel?

"I quote the Dutch writer Leon de Winter: "Since 1950, eleven million Muslims were killed, excluding "ordinary" murders. Slightly more than 0.3 percent of them died in the conflict with Israel, or 1 in 315 Muslim fatalities. . 90 percent of the total number of fatalities died in conflicts with other Muslims (...)

"'Every death is one too many - especially when it comes to children,' we hear enlightened and educated Westerners saying.

But there are many Muslims (especially in the Arab world) who think differently. In their tribal honor-shame culture the extermination of the enemy and his family is an accepted principle. The young fighters of ISIS proudly show the severed heads of their victims.

Here is the poem, translated by a couple of email correspondents:

You're now better. It's written
in The Book. It can be seen in your eye
when you see them approaching: in fanatical clothes,
dusty, their IDs ready in their hand

You look at them as a creator of water
in a world of sand. They live [here] by chance
without promise, can be swept away
like withered leaves. This is your land.

You have learned to keep the fear of persecution
alive without fear, arrogant as the man who chose his enemy for himself.
You knock him down. You are threatened, the outstanding debt gives every bulldozer,

every tank the right to safety
without borders. Your eyes saw the Temple
destroyed, the paving stones bleed under the hooves

of the Crusaders. You're two thousand years old
was there in Treblinka, Schirmeck and Dachau

Though you have stolen their water, shot their children, trapped
them behind barbed wire, you are simply God's people, chosen exactly on
[this ground/these grounds]. Those who still hear the old village screaming
under your woods, your roads, your cities , get ashes in their mouth.

In short: You Jews have become your oppressors because you think you are hot stuff. We liked you better when you were being slaughtered.  Boo, Jew.

Not only is it offensive - it is unoriginal, as these motifs have already been covered by Ducal in his earlier antisemitic poetry.

Ducal was offended when I called him an antisemite in January. So I will couch my criticism of him as a poem, since who can be offended by a poem?

Charles Ducal

Hidden behind his pseudonym

as if he is ashamed

of his sickness

yet he conceals it

with sanctimony

a facade of piety

that none other can approach

his target is chosen

his pen at the ready

to mask his own depravity

the choice

reveals the ugliness hidden

within his heart

within his "art"

(h/t Rudi, including updates on translations)

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A Muslim poem to women

Autotranslating poetry is always dicey, but the intent of this poem in the (relatively secular) Firas Press is very clear. I kept the parts that didn't translate.

The title of the article is "To every woman...."

The name of God the Merciful
From Imam Ali bin Abi Talib, peace be upon him said:

I entered and Fatima Zahra peace, the Messenger of Allah may Allah bless him and his family and peace

Found a strong cry cry, so I said: Here I come, my father, my mother, O Messenger of Allah, what Obkak?! He prayed

Allaah be upon him and his family and peace: "O Ali: the night a family saw me to the sky in the women of my

I remembered the agony of severe and just as I saw the severity of Amabehn

I saw a woman hanging her head her hair is boiling brain

And I saw a woman hanging herself and her throat was in intimate

And I saw a woman hanging Butdia

I saw a woman and eat her flesh and fire glow from beneath

I saw a woman and had to pull her legs shackled and had been highlighted by snakes and scorpions

And saw a blind woman in the coffin of the brain fire out of her head and thighs of her body is heartbreaking

Aljmaa and leprosy

I saw a woman and hold her legs in the fire

And I saw a woman cut off her body at the top of meat and Mwka Bmgard of a fire

I saw a woman and burning her face and hands and is eat Oamaaiha

I saw the woman and the head of a pig's head and her body and the body of a donkey by the AA of the body color

And I saw a woman in the image of the dog and the fire and the intervention of her rectum outside of her mouth, and the angels

Beating on her head and her body with excerpts from the fire

Fatima said: Suffice Kara and my eyes told me what was their work, and walking up to him and put God

This suffering, he said may Allah bless him and God and peace: Oh, my intention

The outstanding hair it was not covered [to be hidden from] men

The tongue was outstanding hurt her husband

The outstanding Butdia it was not for her husband's bed

The outstanding Berglha [she went] out of her house without her husband's permission

Those that eat meat Jsha it was adorned her body for people

The strain, which hands and legs shackled to a shed by snakes and scorpions, it was a few Ablution [not ritually washing in proper times]

Dirty saliva and not from janaabah Ngtzl and menstruation and do not underestimate the Taatnzv and prayer

The blind and dumb and Kherads they were giving birth to their husbands of adultery Vtalguenh Boenaq

Those that had lent money to the meat they were pimping Palmgard

The head of a pig's head and her body was the body of a donkey, it Nmamp Kmabp.

The picture of the dog and the fire and the intervention of her rectum outside of her mouth it was Ma'lep

Nuahh.

Then he said may Allah bless him and his family and peace: and angered me to a woman and her husband, a woman may Tuba

... By her husband ...
Ratified by the Messenger of Allah may Allah bless him and God and peace.

Please dissemination Hmaalrsalp oblivious to all the Muslim God may give
And to all Muslim believers, to stabilize the debt
Oh God, Oh God, I was led to

In other words, the poet saw a vision of women being horribly tortured in hell, and then Fatima helpfully explained exactly what the women's sins were that would make these punishments appropriate.

The funny part is that many of these sins apply to men as well (ritual washing, eating improper meat, adultery) yet only the women are singled out for the gruesome punishments in this poem.

No doubt this is because of the "occupation."

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