Lee Diamond – Heart and Soul
Politically Incorrect
Let’s call a spade a spade!
NO hesitation whatsoever!
Murderers for a god figure
Murderers for a religion
Are the basest of all forms of life
ISIS is pure evil
Islamic State is venomous
The religion that they promote
Is the antithesis of correct
It is the worship of devil
It is the worship of self righteousness
It is the attempt to rule with terror and blasphemy
It is an attempt to destroy the other.
It is the claim that “I own God”
It allows for beheading in the name of my god
It allows for trampling multiple innocents for a god.
It allows for vengeance
In the name of a god.
When religion asserts its god
Over all other god ideas
It destroys god
Itself
Mass murder in the name of any god concept is punishable
By all and every means available to humanity.
Mass murder is holocaust
Mass murder must be punished
With all the venom
Of decency.
It is crusade
It is pogrom
It is war against humanity
As a whole.
Every world religion
—All of civilization
That is not “pig headed”
Must eliminate this scourge
From our midst
For it will destroy
Mankind and God
Diaspora Rabbis and Israel
A group of diaspora rabbis
Object to Israel’s foreign policy re. Myanmar.
What Chutzpah!
They view Israel as their Shul!
Israel!s government as their Shul board!
We’re all Jews
Some of us speak for our Shul
Some of us speak for our local community
Some of us speak as citizens
Of the country we reside In
And some of us can speak for the
Diaspora as a whole !
But:
Some of us are citizens of Israel
Some of us struggle daily
With our values and policies as
A Sovereign State
A Jewish and democratic State.
Some of us defend the state with
Our bodies
Some of us send our children
To defend the state of the Jews
Some of us tragically sacrifice ourselves
And our families
Just so that there can be a Jewish State Of Israel.
We can criticize ourselves
We can demand
Of our government
We can demonstrate “against” it
Or ‘For” this government WE choose!
We pay taxes
We build it with the sweat of our brow
And we can tell the rabbis
Of the great diaspora that they
Are welcome to to join the Jewish
Journey of the miracle of Israel.
Not from their heightened pulpits
And donned in Rabbinical robes
Of their foreign lands
But as simple Jews
Seeking to enhance the the miracle
That we prayed for
–2000 years of prayer
–and now for almost 70 years of Jewish
Democratic Freedom
WHEN WILL IT EVER END?
We all know that there will be no victor
We all know what the final borders will be
We all know that we are two separate nations
We all know what war accomplishes
We all know what fear is
We all talk of shalom or salaam
We all want the whole package
We all have our extremists who thrive
On power and glory and dead heroes.
And we all sacrifice for no reason
Israel is here to stay
Palestine Is here to stay
Neither will vanish
Yet we delude our selves
With visions of defeat of the other
Visions of deluded fools
Our leaders thrive on the conflict
They become rich from conflict
They know that there Is no winning
They know that we will suffer losses
We, not them!
And we, like sheep, follow their lead.
Instead of controlling our leaders
We follow their thirst for power
And their thirst for wealth.
It’s time for you and me
To meet at the green line
1,000,000 strong
That thin small green line
And lead our leaders
To close the only deal possible
The deal for our future
The deal of our lives.
THE END Of CONFLICT
Where’s the center
Ahad HaAm defined it
As the relationship between
The hub and the spokes.
David Forman described it as broadway
And off broadway.
Babylonian Jewry many years,
Even Centuries before that
Knew that center over-rode the exile.
European Jewry
North African Jewry
Yemenite Jewry
Mourned the center
And modeled their prayer
And their vision
Toward the center.
Every synagogue faced the center
Even the center faced toward its very
Center.
Over the 2000 years of distance
The spokes were humble enough
To hold the center, the hub, above our highest joy.
And then came the rebellious child
And demanded equality or superiority,
to be “spokespeople” of the ancient and sensitive balance Between hub and spokes.
The weakest links, the crumbling extensions
From the the vital hub and center
Demanded from afar— superiority — over their essence.
They demanded that the cart proceed the very horse that bore them on its back.
They forgot their status
They forgot their weakness
They forgot their ignorance
They forgot their dependency
Without a hub of strength
There can not be any spokes.
The spokes wither without a backbone.
The wheel can not turn
With withered spokes
The spokes receive
And can never turn the wheel
They are simply extensions of
Jerusalem.
