A "tseytl-lider\????-?????" poem: "We exist"

A special "tseytl-lider\????-?????" poem that I wrote these days because of what has happened in the Darom, in South Negev, Israel. I don't call that a "pogrom", I really think and say this and have been teaching/uttered in sermons in Hebrew and Russian: the Shoah is over. My job (tafqid\?????) is to say this inside of the Orthodox Church and it is bizarre because they don't recognize the Jews, or Israel and cannot as of now. So I am "blurred" - do I exist, not too much, and what will be next after me? Still, yes I can act, be acting. Moreover, I am also a Yiddish language fan and have written thoughts, and even prayed in church and other places in my mother tongue. I wrote this "poem" because we are in the 110th anniversary year of the birth of the poet Avrom (Abrasha) Sutzkever.

It happened suddenly that Hamas appeared to commit all the abominations usually perpetrated against the Jews in the Galut/Diaspora, in particular in Eretz K'naan/??? ????, i.e. the Ashkenazi regions of Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire. And nowadays, as decisions taken by the European colonial States after the Great War that ended in November 1918, there is the "miracle" of a Hebrew State, born not for national reasons in fact. You cannot pray to return to Zion and Jerusalem for two thousand years and then the RETURN, not the "right out of the blue" utopia (like settling in Uganda, for example) is possible after centuries of catastrophes and blessings. Yes, Israel is a shelter, but this is not her main call: she gathers in the exiled, those who are far and near, they are assembled as the prelude of the ingathering of all those who are linked to the Hebrew vocation (in particular the monotheistic creeds, believers). Our generation, the eyes of the living in our generation see something that was in the intense prayers over generations of men, women, families, and children of all possible backgrounds.

I do not believe that the Shoah is a "one-shot" affair. It has somehow been described in the Scroll of Esther. But as the only survivor of my family, I witnessed the growth of something that could not be "true", merely a dream. There are good and evil individuals everywhere, among all souls. Something happened from Theodor Herzl's idea, Eliezer Ben Yehudah's revival of the language (a true resurrection, a hapax in linguistics). And after 80-85 years after the Churban\????? (Shoah\???? in Yiddish = destruction) on the final feast of Simchat-Torah\???? ???? (the Joy of the Torah), on Tishri 22, 5784, the Hamas rushed into a legal country, free State and assassinated. They planned and continue to plan to murder and exterminate Jews. Yes, there are other victims, but there is a basic project and this is the same as at Wannsee and over the centuries. We have to find a new word to say what happened in these recent days of 2023-5784-1445 (Hijri). And there is no real guilt, no remorse, from anybody or at special exceptional levels.

And we know what happened, it is part of a thousand years of experience: "You do not exist... if you were born, you are to be assassinated... you think you bear a blessing... you will suffer and die... others will take your place, supersede your identity, and express it better than you ever could do. And they do".

It is indeed an existential matter. You do not have the right to exist. Period. And this raised an enormous mental earthquake when the Jews came back to Zion to be grafted back into the Land of Israel. The others thought that they had caught, and seized their identity forever! It did not reach any spiritual, moral, religious, political, or philosophical, human brains to cope with such a reality.

This is why the example of Avrom Sutzkever, the Vilna Ghetto survivor, a renowned poet, and the man who saved the books and the Yiddish printing letters and made his aliyah to Israel is so significant right now, these days of deep turbulence. He is the best Yiddish modern poet. The point is and this is why I write these lines these days, today: he was called to witness to the Churban at the Nuremberg Trial in 1945.

He asked to witness in Yiddish, his mother tongue, which is the language in which the Jews experience all sorts of pogroms and blessings, laughter, wisdom, and life in dire periods. And he was not allowed to witness in Yiddish. He had to speak Russian - the language of the superpowers (the same as nowadays in different contexts: the Americans, the Russians, The British, and the French). He had no choice. He could speak Russian, and he would eventually be asked (requested) to witness in English, French... maybe German (!) as the criminals who were at the Court.

He was not recognized for who he was. Yiddish is who he is, not any other language. And at present, we witness the same process: "You do not exist". Worse: we can decide that you have to disappear". It is the same in Be'eri, in the Negev. They can kill, rape, plunder, capture, rapture, burn babies or women or whosoever, you are born to die. And when Avrom Sutzkever witnessed in Russian at the Trial, he could only utter a very very tiny part of who he was. Indeed, he was not recognized for who he was and why he was standing at the Court. He stood, which means as in Yiddish "er shteyt/?? ????" - he resisted, just as the word "stehen" also means "to stand and to resist" in German. Paul Celan noted this about German.

The same happens at present in this war launched by Hamas. For years, I heard and still hear very nice, clever individuals and groups of different backgrounds say: "But they (the Jews) will not stay, will not remain here (in Israel). How long will they stay?" As if it only can be evident that the Jews, the Israeli identity (quite multi-faceted) will disappear, just be removed from the true "Eretz K'naan\??? ????" where the (Divine) Project started and was developed and continues to be developing in all possible ways and directions.

The reason for this poem is simple: Avrom Sutzkever's experience is just the normal experience of a Jew. Not of a man of the diaspora. It is also real in the Land of Israel and can hardly be pronounced by a lot of these very clever, nice people. Avrom's Sutzkever's identity was denied and it was clearly expressed in linguistic terms. Yiddish could not be used, he was not existent for the bigger part of his being. He was compelled to keep silent, to silence. While the world kept silent on the Catastrophe (Shoah). Elie Wiesel's initial title of the book "The Night" is "And the world kept silent/??? ?? ????? ??? ????????''.

This is fascinating. Because it is not a matter of sharing land, properties, cultures, lives, rights, identities, whatever capacities and knowledge. Just "Get away!" And Avrom Sutzkever had this insightful capacity to continue to exist. He stood (fast, firmly)...

23.11.08. ??????????/????. Yoman 156

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