Category Archives: Jewish identity

August 5, 2024 · 7:30 am

An Unexpected Encounter

By Julie Brandon (Downers Grove, IL)

An unexpected encounter at a grocery store

In Downers Grove on a Sunday morning

Pushing my cart down an aisle

Stopping to grab something from a shelf

A young woman and her mother take my cart

Calling after them, I hear them laugh at their mistake

Time stops as they eye my Star of David necklace

And I their hijabs

For a brief terrible moment, we wonder

Threat or friendly strangers

This

This is how fears grows in a Midwestern grocery store

Longing to reassure them, I hurry away to buy a carton of eggs

Julie Brandon is a poet, playwright and liturgical lyricist. She began writing in earnest in her fifties. Her work has been published in Corner Bar Magazine, Awakenings Review, Bewildering Stories, Poetica Magazine, Mini Play Magazine, Fresh Words,  “Am Yisrael Chai Anthology” vol. 1 & 2 and “Writing of Love During War: Poems” among others. Julie’s short plays and monologues have been published and produced in the US and Great Britain. She has taken up the baritone ukulele because that’s what all the cool kids are doing. If you’d like to read more of Julie’s work, you can check out her new collection of poems that she’s written since 10/7: My Tears, Like Rain

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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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June 24, 2024 · 6:22 am

Things I need to hear right now (after nine days in Jerusalem)

by Evonne Marzouk (Maryland)

Tell me

I’ll feel better

when my body heals

when jet lag subsides

tell me I’ll sleep normally

when the war ends

when the hostages return home

when my son comes back

and (please G-d) goes to college

as planned.

Tell me 

I’ll rise from this 

confusion and fear

this time 

of antisemitic attacks 

and biased reporting

that slam against me

unexpected

(but now, more expected)

flinching

every time I turn on the news

or walk by graffiti

in my neighborhood and my city

or pass the police car

guarding 

in front of my shul.

Tell me

I won’t need to fear

what I say

or what I wear,

where I go

or what comes next

that a time will come

when I’ll feel safe again

to be who I am.

Tell me

I’ll again wake 

in the morning

with prayers of gratitude

(and not fear)

and my mind will be clear

for possibilities

empowering others

healing our planet

and living our biggest dreams.

After

the war ends

and my body heals

and jet lag fades

and the world moves on

(although some will never

be able to move on)

tell me, please, 

we’ll use all this

darkness

to find clarity, 

to be a shining light,

to heal the world.

Tell me, please

(though right now

it feels impossible)

we will find a way

together

to create lasting peace.

Evonne Marzouk’s writings have appeared in Newsweek, the Jewish News Syndicate, JTA, RitualWell, the Washington Post, and The Wisdom Daily, and her novel, “The Prophetess,” came out in paperback edition last fall. To learn more about Evonne and her work, visit her website: https://www.evonnemarzouk.com

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June 17, 2024 · 7:30 am

My People

by Marcie Geffner (Ventura, CA)

I lay on the narrow exam table with “everything off” except the blue-and-white hospital gown tied at my neck and open to the back.

It was early morning in Los Angeles and I was hungry—empty, really—and tired from the clear liquid diet—apple juice, vegetable broth, ten lemon JELLOs—and the routine colonoscopy “prep” I’d endured the day before.

A surgical assistant approached me with a wristband.

Inwardly, I moaned. Did I have to do this? Answer: yes.

“Hold out your arm,” the assistant instructed. “Just think of this like you’re at a music concert.”

At my side, the stocky, dyed-blond nurse stiffened.

As did I.

It had been only four days since Hamas militants massacred two hundred and sixty people at a dance party in Israel’s Negev Desert. Israeli soldiers now stood guard at the site, strewn with mattresses, tents, food, clothing, and one militant’s dead body, left there as a warning. In Israel, 1,200 people were dead with another 2,800 wounded. In Gaza, the death toll surpassed 1,500. The war had only just begun.

Could anyone be as clueless as this surgical assistant seemed to be? Apparently so.

“That’s…maybe not the best comment right now,” I said.

The nurse murmured, “I am half-Russian, half-Ukrainian.” Her thickly accented voice came low, as if for my ears only.

She sounded like my grandmother. Born in Kishinev, my father’s mother immigrated first to Panama, then to Los Angeles as a young woman.

I was born Jewish and brought up Jewish. As a teenager, I’d spent one glorious, fearless summer in Israel, studying Hebrew, harvesting potatoes, traveling throughout the state and visiting my great-aunt and great-uncle, who lived part-time in Netanya.

Later, though, my feelings toward my religious heritage changed. As an atheist, I had no interest in prayer. As an adult without children, I felt marginalized, even unwelcome, in synagogue life. But I don’t celebrate Christmas, either. No Christmas tree. No Christmas lights. No Christmas cards. I’m an outsider in almost any religious space.

So why did this Hamas massacre in Eretz Yisrael feel so personal?

Because even without formal religion, I’m still a member of the tribe. I’m not always sure what that means, but I’ve never denied it and can’t imagine that I ever would. Jewish values, history and culture are visible threads woven through the fabric of my life. I don’t know whether I still have distant relatives in Israel, but really, everyone who lives there feels to me like my family. Those vicious attacks? Those people murdered? They could’ve been my loved ones. Or me.

I extended my arm toward the surgical assistant.

“I don’t watch all that stuff happening on the news,” she declared, as if “all that stuff” could not have been of less interest to her. Or to anyone.

She snapped the band around my wrist.

I withdrew my arm.

“It’s easy to look away,” I said, “when it’s not your people.”

Marcie Geffner is a writer, editor and book critic in Ventura, Calif. If you’d like to learn more about her and her work, visit her website: www.marciegeffner.com

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June 10, 2024 · 7:30 am

The Scream of a Post-October 7th Jew

by Jessica Ursell (Campania, Italy)

in bed
cold beads 
of sweat 
catch me 
still in the snare
of my nightmare

back at the home
of my childhood
walking past 
the front door
realizing 
it wasn’t quite 
completely closed

I went to close it
on the other side
they were pushing 
screaming, shoving
with such force

struggling
I tried to push back 
but they were so many

coming for the Jew

spewing incoherent vitriol
their rhythmic battering
sounded the beat of
of an ancient hate

I tried to scream
for in my dream
my son was in the room
my brother used to have

but like my brother
my son‘s door was closed
with music playing
so he couldn’t hear
my strangled screams

dazed and in disbelief
inhuman strength surging
like those stories
of desperate mothers
lifting cars
off the helpless bodies 
of their children

I shoved the door closed
despite the heaving mob
pounding from outside
so hard to click 
that little lock closed

in suburban New York

Daughter of an immigrant Jewish mother from the foothills of the Himalayas and a South Bronx born Puerto Rican Jewish father, Jessica Ursell is a veteran JAG officer of the United States Air Force, poet, and public speaker against antisemitism and bigotry. The granddaughter of survivors of the Holocaust, Soviet gulags, and a descendant of a Taíno great-grandma, she understands in her bones what happens when intolerance, indifference, and ignorance take root in society. 

Raised by scientist parents, Jessica’s early environment was steeped in an atmosphere where questions were welcomed and asking “why not” was encouraged. Jessica lives with her husband in Southern Italy where she writes essays and poetry addressing the complex interplay between trauma, power, love, loss, and madness. 

Her essays, “At the Country Club with Superman,” “Standing Up for the Voiceless: My Fight with Royalty in Anne Frank’s House,” and “What My Zayda Taught Me About Tikkun Olam“ were published by The Jewish Writing Project in July 2022, October 2022, and January 2024 respectively. Jessica‘s poems, “Sedimented Rock” and “Climbing Vesuvius in Stilettos,” were published by Writing In A Woman’s Voice in November 2023 and May 2024. Jessica’s poem, “A Still-Life Collage of Lost Objects,” appears in the February 2024 print issue of Down in the Dirt magazine as well as online (v. 216 Scars Publications). Multiple military audiences, most recently the United States Navy, Sixth Fleet, have heard Jessica speak about the importance of never being a bystander to evil which she believes is the fundamental lesson of the Holocaust.

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June 3, 2024 · 6:15 am

Something Lost, Something Gained 

by Miriam Aroner (El Cerrito, CA)

My bubbe never tasted hummus or shakshuka.

Gelfilte fish, pickled herring, matzo ball soup: 

these were her inheritance 

from the old country, the cold country,

the country unfriendly to Jews.

She did not know Jews who spoke Arabic or Spanish 

or were, chas v’ chalila, Black. 

If they did not speak Yiddish and disliked gefilte fish, 

Not Real Jews.

She had escaped the Tsar, 

the arranged marriage, the sheitel,

the orthodox rituals from birth to death.

But every Friday she lit candles and made matzo ball soup.

She kept a kosher home, but not glatt.

Her daughter, my mother, born in Chicago, 

had no interest in the old country.

She wanted to be a “real American.”

She disliked bubbe’s home-made yogurt, 

her heavy stews, her kugel concoctions.

A few times a year she made matzo ball soup

with Swanson’s chicken broth.

Borscht came from Maneshevitz,

gefilte fish from Rokeach.

No pork or shellfish, all the rest was commentary.

Uncomfortable in restaurants other than Jewish delis

she would never order  pizza

 and was suspicious of Chinese food.  

But she liked McDonald’s Fish Filets.

Now I live far from my roots, such as they are,

from Ukraine to Chicago to San Francisco.

Some of us are intermarried, 

some are Jews of color, 

We collect money for Ukraine, and admire its Jewish President.

We mix nature worship, a bissel of Buddhism,

our High Holidays a tsimmes of shehecheyanus and Leonard Cohen.

All gods are welcome at our feasts, 

although most of us are agnostics or atheists.

We eat pho, won ton soup, avgolemono, albondigas,

clam chowder.

We still eat matzo ball soup: with a felafel or samosa.   

A native of Chicago, Miriam Aroner has lived in the SF Bay Area most of her adult life. She has worked as a librarian in private and university libraries, including Tel Aviv University. She has published several children’s books, and poems in print, and enjoys traveling “because she always wants to see what’s  around the corner or over the hill.” She is a member of a humanistic Jewish congregation. 

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