8 Roses
The poem 8 Roses was written by my good friend Liza Saniefard, who is a beautiful writer. It was written after last week’s massacre at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem Israel, in memory of the eight young boys who were senselessly murdered. The third line in the poem, “They are the roses that have been picked”, is a line from Shir Hashirim which was quoted by one of their Rabbis after the attack. Our hearts and our Tefilot go out to all of the family and friends.
Full details can be found at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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8 Roses
Buried with their books
Stained by their innocent blood
“They are the roses that have been picked”
Eight little boys
Young men
With nothing but love
For their country
And their Yehadoot
These boys didn’t
Don’t
Initiate attacks
They shouldn’t have to be watching their backs
After centuries of oppression
Years upon years of religious suppression
They should be free to examine every digression
Of Jewish thought
Especially in the holy land
That 6,000,000 lives bought
They sit peacefully in their Yeshiva’s
Even after the government cut their funding
They don’t care about the money
They just care about one thing
Yehadoot
And the freedom to live it
To recite it
To give it
To their own
To the Ethiopians that love it
Yes, Doron
They have a version
They want more of it
Another side of their coin
Another Jewish community
Another place to call home
Something called unity
Yehadoot
That intimate tie that binds
That IDENTITY truth
That beauty that waltzes with the soul
That lives in hearts and minds
That brings the weary into the warmth
That teaches men to be kind
That marries
Links
Connects
Finds
The lost
Accepts
The rejects
For
They
Have too long been tossed
By the winds of prejudice
Now they have freedom to find a place to fit in
All those children of Israel
Crawling in their own skin
They shouldn’t have to in their homeland
A place to begin
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You catch Liza’s poetry live this Tuesday night, March 18th when she will be reading at the Bowery Poetry Club.
