Tag Archives: brothers

September 2, 2019 · 7:00 am

A Taste of Home

by Tania Hassan (Gilbraltar)

It will be kibbud av va’em,
I tell myself before leaving the little ones behind.

I fly the 9 hours to gain some eternity.
My oldest friend picks me up at the airport. It’s been ten years.

Shehecheyanu – for keeping me alive.

I walk out into the pouring rain,
I bless it.

Inhaling the sweet smell of wet cedar and grass into every pore of my being,
We duck into a tiny coffee shop in a Montreal alleyway.

Rich, thick and nutty, that latte goes down like
Abuela’s autumn bean soup.

Vekiyemanu – for sustaining me.

We pass the steel moose cut-outs at every major intersection,
I stop for the requisite selfies.

Later I reflect on the expression on my face;
The way my smile reaches the whites of my eyes.

I embrace my parents,
My father’s Ralph Lauren aftershave,
The nephews I never met.

I never noticed their scattered freckles on FaceTime.

Vehigiyanu Laz’man Hazeh – for bringing me to this season in my life.

I laugh with brothers. Hearty guffaws we have to stifle with anyone else.

The boundaries fade away and I am 13 again.

Honouring my parents is easy when my husband is neatly tucked away at home,
meals prepared in the freezer, and I’m sleeping in my childhood bed.

The baby weight I just about lost,
Was greedily piled back on as my palate stopped pretending it was a cultured European.

Though the height of kavod/honour would have me preparing Shabbat for my parents,
I took a back seat and allowed my mother to serve her traditional Morroccan feasts

Honey and cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, and all the love you could cram into five days and nights..

Filling my heart with home.

Five days and not a day longer.

Baruch – A blessing.

Tania Hassan is an ABA therapist who lives in Gibraltar, a 2.2 km squared British peninsula that shares a border with Spain.  Her Spanglish is superb, her British accent less so.  When she has spare time, she writes and pines for Canadian winters. 

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Filed under Canadian Jewry, Family history, history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Moroccan Jewry, poetry

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May 27, 2019 · 6:20 am

As Our Father Neared Death

by Herbert J. Levine (Philadelphia, PA)

As our father neared death, his mind raced
between fantasies and the facts of his life,
his speech like the black box of an airplane that had crashed,
the record of its journey jumbled beyond reconstruction.
My brother and I cared for him, sometimes
feeding, sometimes reading to him
from the Book of Psalms. I led him
beside green pastures and still waters
when he, in a soft voice, as if from far away, blessed me:
May God bless you and keep you. May God shine His Face upon you
until its end. Am I not the brother who wrapped himself in a tallit,
who stood before the congregation on Shabbat and holidays
to lead it in prayer to an improbable God? But all that ritual
razzmatazz fooled my fond old man and me.

After his death, my brother came every Shabbat and holiday
to say Kaddish with our mother.
She said to me every Sunday when I visited her,
“Your father would be so happy
that your brother is saying Kaddish for him.”
Thus my brother received her blessing for the great kindness
he did her, a kindness that only the living can receive.

Herbert J. Levine published his first book of poetry, Words for Blessing the World, at the age of 67. His previous books were scholarly treatments of Yeats and Psalms. To learn more about Herb and his work, visit: https://benyehudapress.com/books/words-blessing-world/

Note: “As Our Father Neared Death” was first published in slightly different form in Words for Blessing the World  (Ben Yehuda Press, 2017). The poem is reprinted here with permission of the author.

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November 6, 2017 · 9:18 am

My Brother’s Death

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

He was my younger brother,
perhaps older in wisdom than I.
He had a gentle heart and caring nature,
never forgetting a birthday or anniversary in our family.
He loved nature and history, and a good joke,
and loved being outside making sure the birds were fed.
In his younger days he loved riding his bicycle
through the streets of Brooklyn.
He loved old movies and could tell you
every John Wayne movie ever made.
He loved comic books,
especially Superman and Supergirl.
He loved his mother with a bond
that was true and enduring.
His passions were simple, and anybody who met him
enjoyed his quick wit and genuine smile.
According to the rabbi at the grave site,
as the body is set to be lowered into the ground,
it is believed that the soul hovers
over the pine box and the deceased
can hear your final messages.
“Goodbye, Gabriel, my brother,
I wish I could have given you a happier life,
but failing that, I wish you a full afterlife,
of walking pain-free and strong,
wherever that may be.”

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and 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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