Category Archives: history

May 26, 2025 · 7:30 am

Cossacks

by Rich Orloff (New York, NY)

I was raised in a middle-class home

In a middle-class neighborhood

Safe and secure

But raised with the fear

That the Cossacks might be standing outside our door

Ready to rape and kill everyone inside

This was never spoken aloud, of course

It was planted wordlessly

My parents never intended to give me this gift

It was simply how they approached life

My mother, born in Belarus

Trained as a little girl where to hide in their little house

If and when the Cossacks came

Her family left in the middle of the night

Telling nobody

Erasing themselves from the world they lived in

My father, born in Chicago

The son of immigrants

A mother from Poland who never learned to read or write

Or show warmth

A father from Ukraine whose only advice to his son was

Never show fear

As you’ve probably guessed

The Cossacks never stood outside our door

But they had already successfully invaded

The souls of my parents

I learned how to protect myself

And have been prepared for annihilation ever since

I share this with you

Not so you will pity me

But so you know who I am

And if, when we meet

I treat you like you may be a Cossack in disguise

I apologize for not seeing who you are

Rich Orloff writes both poems and plays.  His poems have been published in The Poet, Fragments (published by T’ruah), and Fresh Words magazines, and they’ve been presented at churches and synagogues, performed in theaters and schools, read at meditation and yoga groups, and spoken at events both lofty and intimate.  Rich’s plays include the Purim-themed musical comedy Esther in the Spotlight (performed so far in New York, Miami, Toronto and Tel Aviv), the comedic revue OY! (over 50 productions in the United States – and one in Bulgaria), and many more, of all lengths, styles and subjects.  Rich’s plays have had over two thousand performances on six continents – and a staged reading in Antarctica.  More at www.richorloff.com. 

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May 22, 2025 · 7:30 am

Hands

by Rick Black (Arlington, VA)

I watch others pass by, pushing strollers, 

carrying tallit bags, wearing yarmulkes.

And I imagine them in shul, reciting ancient prayers, 

their hands uplifted  to God.

And yet I would rather be here,

bent prostrate, nurturing the arugula seedlings.

Hunched over in torn jeans and invisible phylacteries,

I worship with them daily, my co-worshippers.

I use my hands to dig into the soil,

to clear away stones. 

Rick Black is an award-winning book artist and poet. His artist books are represented in private and public collections, including the Library of Congress, Yale University and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. A journalist for many years, Rick’s poetry collection, Star of David, won Poetica Magazine’s 2012 poetry chapbook contest for contemporary Jewish writing. A reading of Star of David was held in the Middle Eastern & African Division of the Library of Congress. He recently published a new collection, Two Seasons in Israel: A Selection of Peace and War Haiku.

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May 12, 2025 · 7:30 am

Ladies and Gentlemen Lunch is Served

by Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca (Calgary, Canada)

After Tadeusz Borowski’s ‘This way for the Gas Ladies and Gentleman.’

The well-groomed student 

Formal yellow jacket, white shirt black pants bow tie

Starched white napkin over his left arm

Announces lunch at the College of Catering

Where I teach English in a pristine environment,

‘Ladies and Gentlemen lunch is served.’ he says

No pistol by his side, no baton thrust into my ribs

No barking command for immediate compliance.

A flash of white sarees, black pants and white shirts

Move in animated chatter

Professional dress as per the code

Rushing up the stairs to the dining room

Following the tempting aromas.

Taking our seats quickly, we study the menu

Devour the three course French meal

Served to us in style, the company delightful

No food fights necessary, portion sizes are generous.

A walk around the campus

Works off the meal and it’s back to work.

No guards or dogs to chase us

The walk is leisurely, pleasant

The hot Bombay sun the only thing at my back

I imagine the barbed wire around the campus

My imagination cast back to prison walls 

Only beautiful trees and flowers bloom happily.

Here by the friendly gate.

Borowski lived  history, I read its horror

Dazed people stumbling out of cattle cars

Stripped naked headed for the gas chambers

Unaware of their gruesome destination

Unlike me headed for a sumptuous meal.

What evil could devise this violent plan?

I want to give away Borowski’s collection

With the haunting title, but to whom?

Everyone wants to read something edifying

So many are in denial

Survivors don’t lie, make up stories. 

The plateful of food  before me now could  feed two

I put some back into the pot, remembering

The children starved by hatred

The women beaten violently

The man calling out to his God

His mouth dry, his thirst unslaked.

When white smoke emerges from the chimneys

Here in the winter landscape 

I see the blackened sky

The birds fly frantically for fresh air

Trees turn to the color of ash

Some birds disappear and I weep

When I can’t see them.

The six million blur my vision.

What violence prompts people to herd others

Like cattle over a cliff?

Violent thoughts stirring in a violent mind.

The camps an invention of cruel machinations

The journey, the deliberate torment of hell.

I cry out to the oppressors with Borowski

Your country — a stock market transaction
 and hoarded sacks of grain.
My country — the gas chamber
and the Auschwitz flame.*

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: These lines are from Two Countries – Poetry of Tadeusz Borowski (wordpress.com))

(Editor’s note: This poem was originally published in the Usawa Literary Review in a slightly different form with the permission of the author.)

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May 5, 2025 · 7:30 am

Passing

by Susan Kress (Saratoga Springs, NY)

I was summoned

by the big girls

at the convalescent home

where I was recovering

from that illness

and I remember

the biggest one

twelve years old at least

sitting cross-legged

saying You think

you are chosen because

you are a Jew

and I could not imagine

how they knew—

maybe the nurse

who said I have a bone

to pick with you

because I’d told

my mother I did not

get the chocolate

in the package she 

had sent—opened

before I ever saw it—

maybe that nurse had

spread the word

and there I was

accused and not even

seven years old

sure I would be shunned

for being different

like my father

even after that big war

so all I said was But 

I believe in Jesus

and perhaps I did

since my school

had taught me all

about him and I sang

the hymns and carols

loving the music

and the words Breathe

on me breath of God

which I could feel

lifting my hair

like a halo

and those big

girls let me go

though not before

enforcing my un-

easy Yes I do I do believe

in Jesus and I could

leave it there

except this was only

the first time I

was afraid and passed

but not the last.

Susan Kress, granddaughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland, was born and educated in England and now lives in Saratoga Springs, New York. Her poems appear in Nimrod International, The Southern Review, New Ohio Review, Salmagundi, New Letters, South Florida Poetry Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Third Wednesday, La Presa, and other journals. Her poems have been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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April 24, 2025 · 7:30 am

The Slant of Afternoon Light

by Arlene Geller (East Petersburg, PA)

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

—Leonard Cohen

Your palpable need to touch 

your long-missed father

led us both 

to touch history.

I never wanted to set foot 

in Warsaw or Krakow, 

Budapest or Prague.

(Never wanted to be near Germany.)

But drawn by age 

and fading opportunities, 

we overcame our individual 

and collective fears.

We journeyed to places immersed 

in histories unfathomably 

sorrowful, unfathomably rich—  

we will never be the same.

We let the light in.

You now hold images, 

memories that were always

just beyond your reach.

Arlene Geller’s collection of prose poems, The Earth Claims Her, is available at Plan B Press. Her second poetry collection, Hear Her Voice, is available at Kelsay Books Hear Her Voice on Kelsay Books and Amazon Hear Her Voice on Amazon.  

Author’s note: This poem was written after an intense Eastern European trip last year. My husband’s father came to the United States from Poland. Throughout our 45-year marriage, my husband, Hank, has longed for a connection to the father who died when Hank was only 7 years old. The early loss has been an undercurrent for so long that I thought it time to visit at least the country where my father-in-law was born.

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April 21, 2025 · 7:30 am

Sonnet for the survivors.

by Linda Laderman (Commerce Township, MI)

Praise the Holocaust Survivors who ask us never to forget, but live life 

in the present and the future. Praise their resilience, the ones who dance 

the Hora at their grandchildren’s weddings, the grandchildren they couldn’t

imagine they’d have, the weddings they couldn’t dream would take place.

Praise the pastries they take home wrapped in a napkin, because they can’t

know for sure if the cake will have to be left in haste, a dish of dry crumbs.

Praise their unwillingness to take freedom for granted, to refuse to bow to

the demands of demagogues, to stay clear-eyed about our new fear mongers.

Praise the man who hid in plain sight, moving from place to place to evade

the Jew hatred, then began a life in America where he believed he was safe.

Praise him, and his wife, who at 83, bakes cookies because, she says, every-

one deserves sweetness in their life. Praise the children who come to visit 

the Holocaust Center, then walk wide-eyed around the train exhibit, and ask

why Jews were forced into cattle cars. Praise their young eyes, because they see.

Linda Laderman grew up in Toledo, Ohio, where her family belonged to B’nai Israel Synagogue. Though she attended Hebrew and Sunday School, no one spoke of the Holocaust. In 1959, when she was ten, Linda had a Hebrew teacher with numbers tattooed in her arm. Curious, she asked what they were, but her question went unanswered. Years later, as a docent at The Zekeleman Holocaust Center near Detroit, she came to better understand the reluctance of many survivors to talk about their painful past. Linda is a past recipient of Harbor Review’s Jewish Women’s Prize and has received a Pushcart Prize nomination. Her poetry and prose have appeared in many literary journals and media outlets. She lives near Detroit with her husband Israel Grinwald. Linda dedicates this Sonnet to the survivors of the Shoah. For the six million who did not survive, may their memory be a blessing. 

If you’d like to read more of her work, here are two poems that she shared previously with The Jewish Writing Project: Observations and An Invitation.

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April 20, 2025 · 7:30 am

Why was our 1962 Passover Seder different?

by William Levine (Belmont, MA)

Why was our 1962 Passover Seder different from all other seders? It was because it coincided with the 7th game of the NBA championship series between our Boston Celtics and the L. A Lakers. On that night, my paternal grandparents had shoehorned twelve relatives into their small kitchen with a small auxiliary table sprawling into the foyer of their cramped one bedroom apartment in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood.

That night of April 18, 1962 would have been memorable without a final course of basketball.  It was the only time in memory that my nuclear family of four my dad’s sister’s family of six, and my paternal grandparents met for a seder.  We cousins ranged in age from eight to fourteen.  At ten-and-a-half, I was the second oldest, and my sister was the youngest at eight, and thus the one who asked the Four Questions.  

Honestly, though I don’t remember if she recited the questions. In fact, I can’t recall any Haggadah moments. Maybe some pages were covered because my uncle had just helped start-up an Orthodox shul. There was no afikomen (I would have remembered). My grandmother was an accomplished Jewish cook so I still remember the home made matzo ball soup with my favorite add-in, farfel. I’m sure I ate all grandma’s dishes except tzimmes because it had prunes.  Dessert was undoubtedly angel food cake. 

Dad and I were the two ardent Celtic fans at the seder so he would have been the one to turn the game on. The black and white set sat on the dining room table where we squeezed together close enough to view the game on the small screen.  Once the parquet floor came in view, and the screen indicated late 2nd half with a close score, I was fixated on the TV.   Dad was sitting next to me, and we both knew that this was high TV drama, like the climatic pistol duel on a TV western, with my nervousness doubled because this duel was real.   Grandpa was a Sox fan only, and I’m sure my cousins commented on the action, but my dad and I were the only real Celtics diehards. 

Here’s what happened in the excruciating last  seconds of the regulation play: 

The Lakers were tied with the Boston Celtics, 100-100, at Boston Garden with five seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of the decisive Game 7 of the N.B.A. championship series. Selvy inbounded the ball to guard Rod Hundley, who dribbled briefly, then sent a pass back to Selvy, who was alone in the left corner. He hoisted a shot that could have given the Lakers their first championship since moving to Los Angeles two years earlier, but it hit the rim.

The Celtics’ Bill Russell got the rebound and Boston went on to win, 110-107, in overtime.

I went from an emphatic OH, NO! when Selvy got the ball to OH, YEAH! when it clanged off the rim into Bill Russell’s hands. A five minute overtime ensued, during which I was in such ardent fan mode that even if Elijah had made an entrance, I wouldn’t have noticed.  The Celtics prevailed in overtime 110-107, and it being past the cousins bed times we all probably left shortly after the buzzer. 

Poor Frank Selvy, an excellent shooter, and the Lakers were “plagued” by this Passover game as they had to wait an additional twenty-three years and six NBA final attempts to defeat the Celtics for an NBA title

I remember only one other childhood Passover. It  took place when I was six or seven, and thus, I was overwhelmed by the multitude of unknown relatives occupying several tables in my paternal great-grandma’s house in Boston’s Jewish Mattapan section. That’s my only memory: a seder with a  veritable family tree of relatives.

So, the Celtic-Laker seder and great-grandma’s full-house seder are the only two that I remember from my youth. I had a Bar Mitzvah and was confirmed at my reform Temple in heavily Jewish, Newton MA. My parents were not very observant. They did though provide my sister and I with Passover meals at their Jewish country club, bringing Grandpa and Grandma along for the repast. We were of course handed menus, but no Haggadahs. The meal, which featured all the Passover dishes like, matzah ball soup, brisket, macaroons and possibly the dreaded tzimmes,  smelled like Passover, but the only holiday spirit  was Manischewitz.  

I left for college missing the unique Jewish bonding, both spiritual and familial, that a Haggadah-ordered Seder could provide. Fortunately, when I married, I got to appreciate the full Seder plate experience of extended family warmth and a Haggadah service at my wife’s sister’s family Passover meals. At these celebrations the responsive reading did not cover the whole megillah of Passover, but it did hit the symbolic rituals. The afikomen was found, except for the year that the housekeeper discovered the matzah in the piano and threw it out.  The nights always ended with family chatting over coffee and macaroons around the fireplace.

 I have been lucky to capture the full Seder experience as an adult to offset the epicurean based Seders of my youth. Still, my favorite Passover moment is Frank Selvy’s missed shot as time ran out, starting the twenty-three year Lakers plague vs Celtics for the NBA championship. 

Bill Levine is a retired IT professional and full time freelance writer who resides mostly in Belmont, MA. but winters in Delray Beach. Fl. He was lucky enough to witness in person the Lakers’ plague in 1966 and 1984 at the Boston Garden. If you’d like to read more of Bill’s work, you can read his previous two stories published on The Jewish Writing Project: My Mother, a Jewish Southern Belle and The Summers of My Golden Ghetto.

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April 14, 2025 · 7:30 am

My father never offered me

by Herbert Munshine (Great Neck, NY)

My father never offered me, 

in the decades of the ‘50’s and the ‘60’s, 

when our relationship had reached its fullness,

the opportunity to return with him 

to his native Augustowów, Poland, 

to visit relatives (if any had managed 

to survive the forced labor camps or 

mass killings in its ghetto when the Nazis 

controlled the fates of thousands of its Jews). 

He never painted for me a work of art 

or shared words depicting the Netta River

or the town’s canal or spacious marketplace 

or the smiling, gentle people of his youth, 

perhaps because they had ceased to exist,

or perhaps because the agony was great.

Shouldn’t it be the birthright of any immigrant 

to return, if only for special moments, 

or for his or her offspring to walk 

the streets and bathe in the tranquil moonlight 

of the place that was the home a parent knew 

and felt fondness for even in brief moments

many years before?

The difficulty is that when a generation 

suffers massive torture, loss and execution, 

many generations will be forever scarred 

or devoured. Innocence is no defense to 

war crimes against humanity. 

Now I try to envision my father’s happy youth, 

his frolicking with friends and gentle neighbors, 

but the fantasy quickly dissipates into sharp reality 

when I recall the subject not once broached by him, 

rather compelled to dwell in the ash-heap of his memory.

In my old age, it is enough for me to know deeply that

he never offered me knowledge of his Augustowów

because he wanted to shield me from his pain. Even

in his silence, his love for me expressed itself. 

He did not leave his heart in Poland. He brought it to

America and shared it with me in his silence, 

which shouted love when I’d grown

wise enough to hear it.

Herbert Munshine grew up in the Bronx and graduated from C.C.N.Y with both a B.S in Education and a Master’s Degree in English. You can find his baseball poetry on Baseball Bard where he has had more than 100 poems published, and where he was recently inducted into that site’s Hall of Fame. He lives with his wife in Great Neck, NY.

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March 31, 2025 · 7:30 am

Henoch: An Inventory

by Barbara Krasner (Somerset, NJ)

After Lauren Russell

A butcher’s apron pockmarked with dried blood that banging it against the river’s rocks cannot erase. An abacus to calculate the change he owes his patrons. The skill to sever an animal’s carotid arteries, jugular veins, and windpipes in one swift move. A sharp butcher’s knife to cleanly sever a chicken’s head and to break a cow down to its finest parts to sell at a premium to anyone who can afford it. His cleaver whacks away his disappointments until his own fingers bleed with hope for his children. Evening candlelight to read the sacred texts and pray. Meetings of the Baron Hirsch School trustees. His children, even the girls, will get an education, damn the naysayers. An American stamp on his passport from when he arrived in New York with younger brother Benzion. An Austro-Hungarian Empire stamp on his passport from when he returned because Pesia was pregnant. She needed him. No photographs to fold into Chava’s hands when she leaves for America. Plans for his widowed mother’s aliyah to Palestine. The burden of this place and time. No prescience that all but two of his children–the eldest and the youngest–will be murdered. Of the four grandsons named for him, only Herman Krasner is born under the flag of the American Dream.

while the others lie

in the sky in the ashen

shadow of the moon.

Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a PhD in Holocaust & Genocide Studies (HGS) from Gratz College, where she teaches in the HGS graduate programs. The author of two poetry chapbooks and three novels in verse, her work has appeared in Jewish Literary Journal, Tiferet, Minyan, Jewishfiction.net, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She serves as Director, Mercer County (NJ) Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Education Center.

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March 24, 2025 · 7:30 am

America 1955

by Penny Perry (Rainbow, CA)

 My shoes crunch on alley gravel.

A boy calls out “Christ killer.”

I turn see his red hair, freckles.

A brick sails past my head.

Braids slap my shoulders.

My legs tremble. I grab

our back garden gate,

run to my mother.

She drops a trowel, hugs me.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

Weeping in my mother’s arms,

I say, “I’m not a killer.”

The smell of dill in the kitchen.

My grandfather looks up from his 

hot tea in a glass and blinks back tears.

“My granddaughter isn’t safe in America.”

He sips his tea, probably remembering

his own grandfather who encouraged him 

to go to America to learn English and

become a  lawyer.

My grandmother ladles soup.

The carrots are sweet. I’m still 

trembling. My mother paces, says

“Should we call the police?”

My grandfather says “No.”

The bump on his head glistens

in the kitchen light. Cossacks threw

a rock at him when he was a baby.

“We’ll only cause more attention

on ourselves. I will have a civil

conversation with the boy

and his family.”

How can he be so calm? “It’s not safe 

for you, Dad,” my mother says.

Rinsing spinach at the sink, my grandmother 

says “It’s enough the child isn’t hurt.”

“Dayenu” I say to myself. The song

is my favorite part of our Seder.

It is enough that the brick missed me,

thank God. 

It is enough that my grandfather will help,

enough that my mother hugged me, enough 

that my grandmother is making my favorite dish, 

spinach with a hard boiled egg and sour cream.

I wipe my wet face. My grandfather 

slips into his bedroom, steps out 

in his favorite courtroom gray suit 

and purple tie.

The room now smells of baking bread.

In spite of the flying brick, I’m proud to be 

a Jew, proud of our survival, our traditions, 

grateful for God’s blessings.

Penny Perry is the author of two books of poetry Santa Monica Disposal and Salvage and Woman with Newspaper Shoes, both from Garden Oak Press. Her poems have appeared in Lilith, The Paterson Literary Review, Third Wednesday, San Diego Poetry Annual, Poetry International and many other journals. 

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