(A Poem by Jeremy Wood)

In the gutters of Warsaw, there we sat down but we could not weep when we remembered Ashkenaz.
Our fiddles have been taken from us, books of Torah, Talmud, lullabies, these have been burned.
And yet you ask me to weep on your command as if I was your suffering servant,
You ask me to sing to you the songs my babba sang me?
Those aren’t your songs.

I wont talk about peace because you tell me to.

How can I sing these songs on top of the ash heap? How can I mourn when there is no time to mourn?

But if I forget the sweetness of honey on the letters of Torah,
Let my tongue cleave to its palate;

If my right hand loses its strength to clutch a gun,
Let it wither and fall off.

If I forget those old tunes in the hail of gunfire,
In the rattle of the cattle car,

Remember, oh Lord who turns against his people, what happened here this day,
When Israel did not ask your assistance against Amalek
But moses held his arms up in his own strength
And it was not enough.

I pray only for the happiness and wellbeing of the man who one day burns their cities, takes their children.