We, From Bessarabia - Meyer Kharats - Moldova
Translator: Sebastian Schulman (Yiddish)
We, who we ride out at dawn every day, all our possessions in wagons of hay. Carrying our bread in dusty old sacks, salted snacks in our mouths, joy on our backs.
We, from Mărculești, Zgurița, Lipcani, Bălți, Soroca, Fălești, and Briceni. We, from Ungheni, Sculeni, and Rîșcani. We, the Banars, Sepunars, the Baltsans…
We, who we don’t even know when or where how we took on the strange names that we bear. Maybe they’ve always come from right here— From the town of Briceva or the fields very near?
We, who we look just like one another in our places of work, in our sisters and brothers, in our faults, in our talents, in bad and in good, in porches, in basements, in homes made of wood.
We, who we’ve cracked the whips on their hides, fed the sheep, shoed a horse before a ride. Cows we have milked, their calves we have raised, cleaned their filthy stalls in honor and praise.
We, who we sow, who we harvest and reap, saddled the horses, and sheared from the sheep, adopted the ways of Moldavian folk, summertime we wear a wool hat and a cloak.
Free from the whims of the cities and towns, far from Vilna and its rabbi’s renown. We are not sinners, we are not saints, our piety—modest, our trespasses—quaint.
After our meals, we drink red and white and after drinking, we take one more bite. If punishment waits after death at the end the whips will fray on our backs as we bend.
We, Bessarabians, say it out loud: we are not cowards, we are not proud. Jews plain and simple, just off to the side. Away from the others, our time we shall bide…