Lee Diamond – Goldberg; Cohen ; Hakim; Levi
Hard to explain
The film ends
Everyone rises to leave
I continue to stay seated
Reading the names
And credits
Actors and filmmaker
The sound people and musicians
Technical and effects people
Searching the names
For “lanzmen! MOTs”
For Jewish names!
Now Everyone’s gone
From the theatre.
Cleaners are at work
And I’m still sitting!
And searching
Very strange
As I read of a tragedy
Reading the list of names
But my eye stops
At certain names
–Jewish names—
I know them!
Ashkenazic or Sephardic
I recognize them
As if they were my own.
Open any book
Open any page
If the word Jew
Appears on the open pages
I can point to it
Without reading the page
It jumps off the page
At me!!!!.
Jewish athletes
Attract my attention!
Jewish politicians cause me to
Read about them
Learn about them and
consider supporting them
Strange
Jews in danger:
I worry
Jews who need help
Cause me real pain
And motivation to act.
To contribute
To do something
Jewish symbols
Magen David
A Chai חי:
A Menorah
HaTikva
A talit
An Israeli flag
A painting or photograph
Of a Jewish scene
I’m transformed and stop!
Look and Appreciate!
Am I so narrow?
So ethnocentric ;
So self focused?
Where is my value of “other?”
Where is my sense of human concern?
Why am So insular?
I’m embarrassed!
But I’m a Jew
An Ethnic Jew
Through and Through
I surrender
To my ethnicity
For its my essence!
And my world.
Yes I’m out of step
Ethnicity is “out”
Spirituality is “in”
But If only other Jews would
Continue to sit with me
After the movie!
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- 1944, Budapest, Hungary — A Jewish couple in the Budapest ghetto wear their yellow stars upon their jackets. In April of 1944, a declaration ordered all Jews in Hungary to prominently wear yellow stars to make them easily distinguishable from non-Semites. — Image by © Yevgeny Khaldei/CORBIS
