No their death will not revive the dead. No their hunger is not our bread. More tears from them just make more tears. Blood is red. Is red.
The beheaded child. The floating skull... The child under rubble. Lived hardly at all. Snuffed breath of Jew and Gentile will not blow Anyone’s grief away. No.
I sit and write. One letter. At a time. Despair is nothing. Live? Maybe. Or die... No their destruction has not built one shred. Dead is dead.
איך זיץ און שרײַב, אות נאָך אות ייאוש איז גאָרנישט, אחיה? אמות? נישט זייער צעשטערונג האָט אויפֿגעבויט. טויט איז טויט.
“No” (Nisht) by Sholem Berger, translated by A. Z. Foreman
This poem was initially posted to Facebook on October 12, 2023 and read at the break-fast for a communal fast for Palestinian, Israeli, and any other victims of violence, in Baltimore on October 16, 2023.
A collection of recent Yiddish poetry published and performed in the wake of the war.
