Tishah B’Av 5783

People gathered
in defiance
from winter to summer
Democracy’s
sentries of

Hope
with flags held high
on the streets
of Tel Aviv
and Jerusalem
flags
and fires now

aflame
in the summer heat.

Burning beacons
of Ha-Tikvah
‘The Hope’[1]
‘to be a free people
in our land
the land of Zion and Jerusalem’[2]?

Or the last embers of
The Hope
burning?
The Hope soon to be extinguished?
turned to ashes
like the Temples of old?

After all
Democracy

died
in the heady haze of

the ‘Six-Day’ triumph[3]
Israel
saved
from its enemies

long-lost
in the hard facts
of domination

on the ground.

The ‘Green Line’ crossed

the West Bank occupied[4]
by pioneer settlers
turned armed guards
of their fortress settlements
but still stalking 
on the wild side
the descendants of survivors of

pogroms
visiting fire

on another displaced people
who also long

to be a free people
in their land.

Where will it end?
When will it end?
Kinah[5]
let us lament
let us tear our clothes
let us sit on the ground
and scoop ashes
on our heads
let us mourn
the loss of innocence.

And then
seizing Hope
once more
take to the streets
with a call for
Democracy-free-of-occupation
Equality
Justice
Peace
Security
for both peoples
and also
for the land
beloved

of both peoples
‘a land of wheat and barley

and vines and fig trees

and pomegranates

a land of olive oil and honey’

‘Then each person
(each Israeli each Palestinian)
shall sit under their vine
and under their fig tree
and none shall terrorise them’.[6]

Elli Tikvah Sarah

  1. Ha-Tikvah is the title of Israel’s National Anthem. ↑

  2. The last phrases of Ha-Tikvah. ↑

  3. 5-10 June 1967. The ‘Six-Day War’ between Israel and the coalition forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. ↑

  4. 1949 ceasefire line that assigned the ‘West Bank’ of the River Jordan to the Kingdom of Jordan. ↑

  5. Kinah is the Hebrew word for ‘lamentation’. Kinot, ‘lamentations,’ are recited on Tishah B’Av. ↑

  6. Quotations from: Deuteronomy 8:8; Micah 4:4. ↑