Chutzpah

What could it do

To a people to learn

So many family members

Were beaten and burned?

Humiliated,

Massacred and

Hounded

From home.

Across countries,

Centuries.

Culled in crusades,

Murdered by Catholics

In Castille, Seville, Aragon

Who preached a ‘universal’ spirit

Of hatred of other faiths, other people

And were themselves

Immune to Jesus.

‘Encouraged’ to convert

By inquisitive Christians

Nothing you did was enough,

To keep you safe.

Expelled again

En masse.

Arriving somewhere new

With little more

Than hope and each other

(though there is little else)

To rebuild your lives, in places like:

Odessa, Kishinev,

Salonika, Warsaw.

We all know how that ended.

The hell where words must fail.

It takes gumption,

Mass murder.

Especially

The women and children.

Your people have long known,

Too many have the stomach for it.

After so many losses

Your wandering family

Now has a home

To be defended

With everything you have.

You refuse the historic victim role,

There is nowhere else you will ever go.

It takes chutzpah,

Writing poems

About humanity

And suffering

To the Israelites.

(Though I try

To be a gentle guy).

Forgive me:

I would have spoken out too

For your people

In their great suffering.

But not because

You are Jewish,

Or I am a Jew.

It is because we are brothers

(From a different mother)

And we know

What men can do,

That I must speak to you.

From Canto for David, ten poems about Israel and Palestine. The introduction, dedications and suggested reading are on the Canto’s page.