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.
The Jewish Writing Project 