Yom Hazikaron
Yom Hazikaron, 2015
So many fallen soldiers
Like so much broken glass
Steep the land in sorrow
And make the heavens brass.
Is this the reason why
We turned our trek to home,
From the loveless desert
Redeemed the altar stone?
To let the liars loose
And stone us at their ease,
Ban us from our temple
And murder when they please?
In this what God enjoined
Millennia ago
When He passed us over
But did not spare Pharaoh?
He led us to Sinai,
There gave us our Torah
And told us in the land
We had to build the law,
Equal weights and measures
For all who dwell therein
But no rights for the gods
Of those who live in sin.
We did not listen then
And do not listen now
And so with our neighbours
Endure an endless row.
We beg to share the land,
They only want it all,
They the sons of Moloch
Who dance when others fall.
They feed their children hate
While we raise ours on peace
But send them off to war,
The nephew like the niece.
Some lose their lives in battle,
Some lose their lives in streets,
Victims of those Arabs
Who hand out death like sweets,
Then take us to the court
Where world opinion stands
And listens to their lies
Like music from brass bands.
But really it’s our fault
For not telling the truth
The land is really ours
Naomi heard from Ruth,
This land of Zion’s call,
Jerusalem as well,
Ask Naomi Shemer
Whose songs that truth do tell.
Each year we sing those songs,
Recite the Yizkor too,
Pay the dead and fallen
What rightly is their due.
We watch the numbers climb,
Vow it is not in vain,
But I no longer buy
What cleaves my heart in twain.
I say the time has come
To rid the land of blight,
Cleanse the land of idols
And end the endless night.
Those who kill the children,
Their own as well as ours,
Have forfeited all right
To take in the flowers.
Like Cain may they wander
And think upon their sins
And in two thousand years
Tote up their score of wins.
Then next year when I come
To bless the fallen dead
My tears shall freely flow,
My pride to grief will wed.