Category Archives: poetry

September 11, 2023 · 7:30 am

A Prayer for Choosing a Shepherd

by Rich Orloff (New York, NY)

(a response to Psalm 23)

Unlike sheep
Each of us gets to choose our shepherd

I have sampled many shepherds
And haven’t always chosen wisely

I have chosen ego as my shepherd
And confined myself to a path no wider than I am

I have chosen tribalism as my shepherd
And refused to look beyond borders of my own making

I have chosen comfort as my shepherd
And convinced myself to be satisfied with meager grazing

I have chosen obligation as my shepherd
And filled my path with resentment

I have chosen distrust as my shepherd
And viewed every other sheep as a possible threat

I have chosen fear of rejection as my shepherd
And convinced myself I am still a fragile little lamb

I have chosen fear of death as my shepherd
And prevented myself from seeing how beautiful the land is

If I allow the Divine to become my shepherd
This choice stems not from wisdom
But from the simple admission
Of how poor my choices have been so far

Still, as I consider choosing the Divine as my shepherd
I fear the Divine will turn me into a sheep
Or one day banish me from the flock
Or even lead me to slaughter

As I wonder who to choose
I see that God has already chosen me
I stand before the Divine
Praying for the courage to trust my shepherd

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, 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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September 4, 2023 · 6:30 am

What’s In A Name                            

by Annette Friend (Del Mar, CA)

Annette.
Yes, that’s right.
Like Annette Funicello
if you are old enough to remember
the most popular Mouseketeer’s
television career.

Yes, named after my grandmother,
Hannah, or, in English, Anna.
A Jewish tradition,
naming for the dead,
so their memory and names are not lost
like forgotten pages in time.
Annette is “little Anna”
but definitely not French.

Ancestors from what is now Ukraine.
Before that Russia.
Before that Poland.
Before that a genetic mutation
hurtles me back in time
to the First Temple
in Jerusalem.

We Jews assimilate
but carry our names and histories
with us where ever troubles
and travels take us.
Our names, reflections
of double or triple identities.
In Hebrew
my name is Channah Bat Shayna
and Bat Lev.
Channah daughter of Shayna
who became Jean,
Lev who became Leo
when they crossed
the Atlantic sick in steerage.

We carry our heavy histories,
sometimes unbearable,
fastened on our backs.

I asked my mother once
why she never named me
for her sister Mae,
killed by the Nazis in Poland.
She said there were too many tears
that soaked that name.

But my new great niece
is named Paisley Mae.
A red-cheeked North Carolina baby
who carries the past
as a piece of her
like a pure white pebble
perhaps smoothed over
by the passage of time
until the rough edges
of history disappear.

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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August 21, 2023 · 6:30 am

Something about the rugelach

by Carol Coven Grannick (Evanston, IL)

Something about the rugelach…

they bring her to mind 

the word rolling out like pastry dough

spreading smooth and silky, caressed then cut

they bring her to mind 

as part of the duet with Dad during nighttime travel

dark-lit stars, Yiddish lullabies in the language of then 

the word rolling out like pastry dough

with tastes of comfort and warmth and now

tenderness of hugs still desired this long time later

spreading smooth and silky, caressed then cut

fondled, filled and curled with tenderness then baked

now infusing my mind with the delicate aroma of my mother’s memory.

Carol Coven Grannick is a poet and children’s author whose award-winning novel in verse, Reeni’s Turn, debuted in 2020. Her poetry for adults and children appears/is forthcoming in numerous print and online magazines, and she has received two Illinois Arts Council grants and a Ragdale Foundation Residency for her work.

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August 14, 2023 · 6:58 am

Bar Mitzvah

by Perri Weinberg Schenker (Cincinnati, OH)

Like Moses, you stand poised to ascend,

wrapped up in the tassels of your courage and your fear.

Man-child, my child.

Child of God, child of green grass,

of ocean waves and snowflakes,

of flames that never consume.

Surely you know—surely—

that today you will leave behind

the spindly legs and tender leaves

that propelled you here.

Before this crowd of sinners and supplicants,

you will shed that skin, and rise.

Will the mountain expand you,

braid your soft sinew into knots?

What will you learn from the pebbles beneath your feet?

Man-child, my child,

Child of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,

square your shoulders

so they can bear the heavy stones.

Plant your foot into rock, foot into rock,

finding the rhythm, 

finding the crevices where secret knowledge hides.

Wedge yourself a foothold

in the footsteps of your fathers,

and climb

—away from me.

Perri Weinberg Schenker is a writer and editor in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she focuses on academic publications, textbooks, medical manuscripts, and marketing communications. She has always been a closeted poet, and “Bar Mitzvah” is her coming-out poem. Perhaps she’ll share more in the future—who knows?

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July 24, 2023 · 7:00 am

Caught in the Middle

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

I am lucky enough to have

friends on either side

of the religious diamond, 

fundamentalists who swing from the right,

and atheists who bat from the left.

I stand squarely in the middle,

unsure which side to root for,

let alone play for.

I am caught between 

piety and protest, tradition and rebellion.

There are so many teams,

as there are so many religions.

For which team do I sign a long-term

contract on the dotted line?

The Pittsburgh Protestants?

The Boston Buddhists?

The Miami Muslims,

or the Jersey City Jews?

Doesn’t God pitch for all the teams?

Who is to say which team is best,

which team is strongest,

which team leads the league?

We are all essentially on the same playing field.

We are all part of the same cosmic lineup.

We need to feel connected,

no matter which team we play for.

We do not wish to be wandering alone.

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 17, 2023 · 7:11 am

A Psalm of Pizza

by Rich Orloff (New York, NY)

While waiting with great anticipation
For the cheese pizza I ordered
Because I am consumed with hunger
And I really need this pizza

God knocks on my door

I open the door
And God says
I offer you the universe and all of its wonders
And I offer you life’s greatest gift, love

That’s nice, I reply
But I was really expecting a cheese pizza
And I’m very hungry
Where’s my cheese pizza, God?

God smiles, in that inscrutable way God does
And leaves
Continuing a lonely mission to go door to door
Offering the universe and love to all who will receive it

While over and over
People respond with disappointment to God’s offering
Because they were expecting a cheese pizza
And God didn’t deliver their prayer

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, 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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June 12, 2023 · 6:59 am

Skater’s Waltz

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

I freely admit I skate
on the surface of Judaism, 
content to glide through life
with minimum knowledge of
Jewish lore and wisdom below.

I do not possess the right tools
to fish for deeper meanings
among the school of books
that explores the depths of
man and meaning.

But it does raise a question:
Am I less of a Jew because 
I skim over the pages 
of books I don’t understand?

I don’t think, while skating,
I am capable of falling into
the cracks of knowledge
in the pages of sacred scrolls
that live below the surface,
out of my flailing reach.

Can a man be righteous
without the study of religion,
with only the trappings of it? 
Can he be a good man, even
if he decides to keep on skating?

In my own fashion, 
with my own skates,
and at my own pace,
I will continue my dialogue
with my religion while
humming a skater’s waltz.

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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May 15, 2023 · 6:30 am

Poem of an End

By Shai Afsai (Providence, RI)

— Prague, Czech Republic 

Tisha Be-av and Tu Be-av 82 liftrat katan/August 2022

After Yehuda Amichai’s “Poem Without an End”

In a synagogue

they have made a Jewish museum.

The Torah scrolls and rabbi’s chair 

are gone.

There are no children running

through the aisles

no elderly congregants

claim their regular seats.

In their place —

men with bare heads 

and women without much clothing

move about the sanctuary.

They have made a Jewish museum

in a synagogue.

Exhibit panels line the walls

where siddurim and ḥumashim.

would be shelved.

Instead of prayer and study

cameras snap, 

cellphones sweep the room 

for panoramic pictures,

and tourists pose

for selfies.

No more amen, 

no more yehe sheme rabba,

no more shabbat derasha,

no more kiddush levana.

Come evening,

members of a local symphony orchestra 

perform medleys to great applause

for culture-worshipers.

After fifty years

of fascists and communists

there are not enough Jews left

to fill the beautiful space

with devotion.

For what else can the building be used?

In this bustle

it is at least safe

for now

from being covered with the thickening cobwebs

of  I. L. Peretz’s golem

or becoming home 

only to Kafka’s marten-sized animal.

The full moon wanes.

In a cemetery once

at a burial,

I heard a Jewish woman 

say:

“The problem with the Orthodox 

is they made Judaism into a religion.”

But in this building

I see the trouble

is

that others

have rendered the religion

into a memorial.

Shai Afsai (shaiafsai.com) lives in Providence. In addition to short stories and poems, his recent writing has focused on Benjamin Franklin’s influence on Jewish thought and practice, and on the works of the contemporary Dublin author Gerry Mc Donnell. Afsai’s writing has been published in Anthropology Today, Ibbetson Street Magazine, Journal of the American Revolution, Review of Rabbinic Judaism, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, and Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review.

Note: This poem first appeared on Poetry Super Highway, and is reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.

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April 18, 2023 · 7:00 am

A Yom HaShoah Reflection

by Howard Debs (Palm Beach Gardens, FL)

“How does one mourn for six million people who died? How many candles does one light? How many prayers does one recite? Do we know how to remember the victims, their solitude, their helplessness? They left us without a trace, and we are their trace.” — Elie Weisel

In the mid-80s I was privileged to experience “The Precious Legacy,” an exhibit then touring the United States consisting of a selection of Jewish artifacts from the collection of the Jewish Museum in Prague. (As it happens, Prague is very close to home, my ancestral home, actually. My paternal grandfather came to America from Riga, Latvia in 1886.) 

One of my areas of special poetic interest is ekphrastic poetry, a form which takes its inspiration from pictorial and other artwork. The artifacts in the collection were silent witnesses from the time, and I realized that I could give them a voice, and, in this way, let them speak for themselves through me — a bold but plausible idea. 

I contacted Jakub Hauser, the curator of the vast photographic collection of the Jewish Museum, and presented my idea. I asked if the museum would grant permission for me to select and use a number of archival photographs from the collection for a series of poetic statements about them. The museum agreed.

My intent was to explicate and illustrate the indomitable spirit for good juxtaposed by the inevitable potential for evil — what in Hebrew is called yetzer hatov/yetzer hara, “good inclination”/”evil inclination.”

I chose Terezin as the focus of the work, as the camp has become associated with the spiritual resistance of the Shoah. Thirty-three thousand perished at Terezin. In all, some 140,000 Jews were transferred to Terezin, of which nearly 90,000 were ultimately sent to points further east and to almost certain death. Fifteen thousand children passed through Terezin. Approximately 90 percent of these children perished in death camps.

Here’s one of the poems that I wrote after viewing the collection and with which I began my journey to bear witness:

The Suitcase to Terezin

Josef Ernst is the name on the suitcase.

What can we know from a suitcase?

285 is the number the Nazis assigned to him

for purposes of his transport to Terezin that

day on the train identified as AAw,

and so from lists that were kept

we know he was taken away on the

3rd of August, 1942 from

Horomeritz a quaint Prague village the name

of which appears on the suitcase, his captors

being meticulous about the details of such things

as this and from such records we know Josef Ernst

born 24 June 1900 was liberated from Terezin,

he survived the Holocaust this we know, he had

a life after Terezin and surely now he rests in peace,

we can but hope that he forgave the human race.

For some 30 plus years, I’ve searched for a way to continue bearing witness to the Holocaust, and feel blessed to have written such a poem and to have founded the New Voices Project as a way to help others bear witness, as well.

— 

Howard Debs is the founder of the NewVoicesProject newvoicesproject.org. He received a University of Colorado Poetry Prize at age 19. After spending the past fifty plus years in the field of communications, with recognitions including a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educational Press Association of America, he resumed his creative pursuits. Finalist and recipient 28th Annual 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards, his essays, fiction, and poetry appear internationally in numerous publications. His photography will be found in select publications, including in Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge” artist and guest editor. His book Gallery: A Collection of Pictures and Words, is the recipient of a 2017 Best Book Award and 2018 Book Excellence Award. His chapbook Political is the winner of the 2021 American Writing Awards in poetry. He is co-editor with Matthew Silverman of New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust and is listed in the Poets & Writers Directory. 

As a writer, you’re invited to help the NewVoices Project. Please visit The Goodreads/Amazon Reviews Challenge for more information.

Note: This story is based in part on Howard’s essay, The Poetry of Bearing Witness, which he wrote about creating the New Voices Project for Krista Tippett’s On Being Project. https://onbeing.org/blog/the-poetry-of-bearing-witness/

His poem series, “Terezin: Trilogy Of Names,” was originally published in China Grove Literary Journal, Vol.3, and is partially reprinted here with permission of the author. Name and information are from the database of Terezin Initiative Institute entries for Shoah victims and survivors.

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April 17, 2023 · 6:30 am

Birthright

by Lori Rottenberg (Arlington, VA)

For my grandmother, Margot Butterfass Rottenberg (1912-1996), and her father, Shaya ‘Max’ Butterfass (1872-1932)

The past is not decent or orderly, it is made-up and devious. 

—Robert Pinsky, “Gulf Music” 

A diamond horseshoe  

to pin the cravat of a man    

smart and squat, grand liar   

and survivor, continental pinball— 

gold to fix him   

to some ground  

after so many homes   

passed beneath his feet.  

Warsaw, New York, London, 

Berlin—Max decided  

truths carved on forms would be  

chiseled by him alone:  

Birthdays, dates, names, 

sworn oaths to bureaucrats  

whose countries didn’t want him— 

interchangeable as the chickens he raised.

 

What mattered were the chances 

he forged from an alchemy of blood:  

escaping pogroms, documents that unlocked  

borders like keys, wealth he could wear. 

***     

My grandmother transformed  

Max’s bit of glittering luck caught   

in the Weimar sun, turned tietack to ring  

after he died. She carried him  

on her pinky to America,  

sailing on the paper boat  

of citizenship that was his  

legacy. She wore him  

for 60 more years, married  

another hard man who bent  

only for her. The ring  

became promise—for me,  

granddaughter made daughter—  

while she lived, piecing  

a new life, joining  

family to family.  

She offered me everything   

else before dying but  

could not let go of her father’s   

sparkling horseshoe.  

When I die you will have it.   

This was a lie.   

It disappeared where I was not  

but should have been: at her side. 

 

*** 

Now without the light  

from her twinkling ring, reminder   

of the man who birthed my future,   

I pull strings of truth from tangled memory.

Almost as old as Max would live to be, 

I am bloodbound to tend his words,  

to pick the paper bones of his life:  

all that remains of my birthright.   

I am the one supposed to know,   

the one to smith our story into words   

that will last like gold, like diamonds.   

Max’s horseshoe can’t help me   

tell truth from lie—all   

I see is history’s churn,   

countries changing every generation,  

life’s work scattered; the ring’s one   

more thing lost in the journey.   

But its luck is my life, my great wealth  

the pinky it graced: an estate  

I will claim the rest of my days.

Lori Rottenberg is a writer living in Arlington, Virginia who has published poetry in many journals and anthologies. Her most recent work on her Jewish family history will be appearing in 2023 in Minyan Magazine and Open: A Journal of Arts and Letters. To read her new novel in verse, visit The Enchantress Queen and The Ghost Who Made Me Through the 2021 Arlington Moving Words competition, one of her poems was chosen to appear on county buses, and she served as a visiting poet in Arlington Public Schools for over a decade. She works at George Mason University, where she teaches writing to international students and poetry to students in the Honors College. She is in her third year of studies at the George Mason University MFA Poetry program. For more information, please see  https://lrottenberg.weebly.com/ or https://yetzirahpoets.org/bios/lori-rottenberg/.

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