Monthly Archives: July 2024

July 29, 2024 · 7:30 am

“Does God Have to Take Attendance?”  *

* Author’s note: This poem was inspired by Mayim Bialik, a Modern Orthodox Jew, star of “The Big Bang Theory,” whose character Amy said, “I don’t object to the concept of a deity, but I am baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance.”

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

In my constant back-and-forth with God,

throwing questions up at the sky,

I do not expect answers,

but would be appeased by some sign

that my queries are at least received.

What if I obey 612 rules instead of 613?

What if I hold one Seder, not two?

What if I do not go to shul

each and every Saturday?

Does God have to take  attendance?

I have a lot more than Four Questions.

Do I need the decisions of rabbis

to tell me how to run my life?

Do I need the voices of the congregation

to emphasize the fact I am a Jew?

Does a faithful adherence to ritual

bring me closer to the presence of God?

Does He even care?

God, it’s me, Mel.

Are you even listening?

I am standing outside the synagogue

wondering if my attendance is required.

Is it mandatory I attend, or is it good

enough that I remain standing humbly,

asking my questions in Your sight?

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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July 22, 2024 · 7:30 am

A Home With Dignity

by Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca (Calgary, Canada)

(A poem about belonging)

 I want six million Jews back to their homes

To their hat shops, their loved ones, and their bright mornings,

To awake in their beds with soft sheets and warm slippers

To put their feet into, and cross the threshold to kitchens 

Smelling warm with the baking of Challah bread.

I want sisters to whisper to each other from bunk beds

Scurrying up and down the ladder to exchange places

Laughing without fear of being muffled,

Like we did many nights with sleeping parents who

Unaware of our sibling shenanigans, dreamed in peace.

I want six million Jews to watch the butterflies 

Flitting across a kind sun that warmed their hearts

With promises of hope, of births, graduations, weddings 

Dressed in satin gowns with silver stars, the yellow ones 

Out of stock, discontinued, banned forever.

I want six million Jews to look out at the fields with cattle grazing

From train windows, with the fresh air blowing on their faces

Going on a family holiday to the beach with free minds

Surfing the waves, swimming with the dolphins,

Returning to their homes to wash off the sand from their happy feet

To wear shoes of the right size with no holes in them.

 In a career spanning over four decades, Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca has taught English in Indian colleges, AP English in an International School nestled in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains in India, and French and Spanish in private schools in Canada. Her poems are featured in various journals and anthologies, including the Sahitya Akademi Journal Of Indian Literature, the three issues of the Yearbooks of Indian Poetry in English, Verse-Virtual, The Madras Courier, and the Lothlorien Poetry Journal, among others. Kavita has authored two collections of poetry, Family Sunday and Other Poems and Light of The Sabbath. Her poem ‘How To Light Up a Poem,’ was nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2020.  Her poems celebrate Bombay, the city of her birth, Nature, and her Bene Israel Indian Jewish heritage. She is the daughter of the late poet Nissim Ezekiel. 

Author’s note: Challah is a special bread in Jewish cuisine, usually braided and typically eaten on ceremonial occasions such as Shabbat and major Jewish holidays. Ritually-acceptable challah is made of dough from which a small portion has been set aside as an offering. The word is Biblical in origin. (Wikipedia)

(Editor’s Note: “A Home with Dignity was published in “Light of the Sabbath,” the author’s chapbook, as well as in the anthology “Heartstrings,” an anthology edited by Sanjula Sharma). It also appeared in the 25th Annual Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Poetry Issue of Poetry Super Highway, April 2023, and is reprinted here with permission of the author.)

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July 15, 2024 · 7:16 am

At Pesach 2002

by Cheryl Savageau (Boston, MA)

….for Joseph

no bombs explode in our midst as we speak

but the tv tells stories of children in Paris

and Jerusalem who last night

dipped eggs in salt water

ate bitter herbs

they are dead now

How is this night

different from all others?

tonight we drink the four glasses of wine

schmear horseradish 

and charoset on the

bread of haste

we open the door to

Elijah and sip

from Miriam’s cup

we eat Bubbie’s 

matzoh balls

put an orange on the plate

there is nothing we eat

tonight that is not

a story

after the september bombing

my son and his wife

talked of the family they wanted

how dare we bring

a child into this

world?  but when

has it not been

this way?  how are

we any different?

and in love 

and defiance they 

conceived

tonight their unborn

child is the

stranger we welcome

among us

we will call him

Joseph he will be

loved he will ask

the questions open

the door drink

from the bottomless cup

Cheryl Savageau is a convert and also Native (Abenaki), and this poem is about her first experience as part of a Jewish family, and how she became part of the Jewish people. She has three collections of poetry: Mother/Land, (SALT 2006) Dirt Road Home (Curbstone Press 1995), and Home Country (Alice James, 1992).  Her memoir, Out of the Crazywoods, was published in 2020, and her children’s book, Muskrat Will Be Swimming, was first published by Northland in 1996, then in paperback in 2006. This poem is part of a new collection, New Love/Old Love, looking for a publisher. Visit her website to learn more about her life and work: https://cherylsavageaublog.wordpress.com/

Note: Previously published in the Cape Cod Poetry Review, Vol IV and V Summer 2018, and reprinted here with the generous permission of the author. 

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July 8, 2024 · 7:30 am

Safety for Jews

by Annette Friend (Del Mar, CA)

For the challah baking event at my synagogue,

a gathering to bring us together during these terrible times,

I carry in two extra bags of flour, four jars of honey,

sesame and poppy seeds we need at the last moment.

I am stopped at the gate of our building, a police cruiser

parked at the entrance, the two, armed guards,

glocks ready at their waists, know me, I am here often,

but still say, “We need to check your bags.”

They poke the grocery bags with a long stick,

find flour, honey, sesame and poppy seeds, scour

my purse for any hidden weapons, then wand me

in search of anything dangerous they might have missed.

I thank the two young guards, too young for such weapons,

tell them how grateful I am for their thoroughness

in protecting us, try not to think of the thugs

with AK-47’s that these innocents might have to face.

How did it come to this? Swastikas painted in the bathrooms

of my sons’ high school.  Friends tell me

they are removing mezuzahs from their front doors.

Do we need to hide all over again, here in America?

A parent tells me her daughter who wears a Jewish star

on her college campus was surrounded by a vicious group,

fellow students, yelling for her to leave, a dirty Jew, she no longer

belonged, shades of Nazi Germany.

We Jews are damned when we are weak, maligned as sheep

led to slaughter, but also damned when we fight back

and told we should take the high road, forgive and forget.

Just make peace.  What hostages?  What massacre of innocents?

As Jews, we thought if there comes a day when we need

to run, there is finally a safe place to take us in, the land of Israel,

our own Jewish state, our homeland.  Now Israel herself cries

for her captives, her dead.  

Safety for Jews is always an elusive dream.

Annette Friend, a retired occupational therapist and elementary school teacher, taught both Hebrew and Judaica to a wide range of students. In 2008, she was honored as the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Jewish Educator of the Year from San Diego. Her work has been published in The California Quarterly, Tidepools, Summation, and The San Diego Poetry Annual.

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July 1, 2024 · 7:30 am

The Valise

by Julie Standig (Doylestown, PA)

The valise was discovered directly next to two jars        

of home-made borscht, outside, on the terrace

that faced the aquarium, the Atlantic and Surf Avenue.

My mother grabbed the borscht.

I longingly looked at the luggage. Khaki camel

color with rusted brass metal latch closures,

that stuck but worked.

No surprise when I opened this time capsule—

an old Tunisian-stitched afghan made from acrylic

leftovers, which shrouded a fragile black leather,

pink ribboned photo album. The kind that held

photos in place with pasted paper corners.

I had searched every  album in my aunt’s home 

for a particular photo I had heard of, but never seen. 

The photo of her holding tight to her infant son.

In Auschwitz. The baby that didn’t make it to Brooklyn.

The photo was not there. And I had no clue 

who the people held by paper corners were. Notes

on the back were written in Hebrew and Polish. Draped

in the very familiar afghan. A blanket I knew well.

My aunt made it to keep her husband wrapped as he sat

in front of the TV on their sofa. He had lung cancer

and she aimed to stay the chill for as long as possible.

I took the afghan home, quite intent to return 

for the valise. But my mother got there first. 

She had no care for the aesthetic—saw it as garbage.

And maybe, maybe, my mother was right.

As for the afghan—it is put to good use whenever I catch

a fever, a chill, or feel forlorn. My Coney Island hug. 

Julie Standig’s poetry has appeared in Schuylkill Journal Review, US1 Poets/Del Val, Gyroscope Review and Crone editions, as well as online journals. She has a full collection of poems, The Forsaken Little Black Book and her chapbook, Memsahib Memoir. A lifelong New Yorker she now resides in Bucks County, Pa. with her husband and their Springer Spaniel. If you’d like to learn more about Julie and her work, visit: https://juliestandig.com

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