A poem by my father, Zeev Kachel
From the book Can We Still Love
Translated from Hebrew by Uvi
Jerusalem!
Towards you, pilgrims forged ahead day and night, in action, in vision,
To you they devoted their soul, their passion and yearning.
Fathers, sons, and their descendants dreamt of you while in hiding
For millenniums of years in exile, darkness, oppression.
Jerusalem!
You were their flag and emblem, their heart’s prayer, their altar
They kept faith, boundless love for you, in fire and water,
While enduring grave insults, agony, and hardship.
To you they cried out when attacked by tribes of every stripe, for any cause, any blame
Their hands didn’t give up as they carried your Torah to people who knew not your name.
Footsteps steeped in blood, breast ripped by the cross, flesh by the whip,
The dust of all worldly roads settled over their scars,
Sacred letters fluttered out of burning scrolls held in their arms.
Jerusalem!
On nights of carnage and decimation, shielded by the cross,
A scant few believers went on revering you in secret, their lives bound for loss.
Even as they burnt at the stake of the Inquisition, or perished in prison,
Their blinded eyes beheld the glory, the City of David
And their souls went out with one last cry, unabated,
Out of water, out of fire…
Next year in Jerusalem!
To you they carried their soul, even when locked in their tormentors’ dungeons
Throughout the crusades, with the cross festooned over their bosoms
Their limbs crushed by gyrations, by wheels of torture.
To you they dedicated their heart, as they were sacrificed to a godhead.
Your sole symbol, the Star of David, in their breast till the end
Their lives illuminated by a mystical spark ignited in rupture.
You were their flag and emblem in bunkers and in concentration camps,
In gas and coal chambers they mused of you, till drawing their last breath.
Now in the shade of walls in collapse, in the valley of the shadow of death
They behold him: mounting his horse, here comes the Messiah.
