At first, this was the promised land.
Since then we need protectors.
And so we live with walls and checkpoints,
bomb shelters and metal detectors.
It’s true, it’s not the calmest land.
They check our bags for bombs,
and walls (of some effectiveness)
are built among the palms.
And when the walls are everywhere,
the coop shut up with locks,
we sleep like nervous chickens
at the mercy of the fox.
…
from “The Other’s Home” series, 2017
Like the dead in the hands of the Lord, in your hearts you’ve forgotten
your dead in their graves, your slain ones cut down
In Ukraine by the swords of the Christians, in downtrodden Zion by the
swords of Islam.
Your slain with their innards ripped out, and their backs hacked apart,
who were stabbed in the eyes and the heart and the ribs,
Your slain with their charred, severed heads and their legs roasted like
goats on a flame
A bonfire the enemy made of your home.
Your slain whom the bloodthirsty son of Hagar has slaughtered and
trampled, like olives or grapes in a press,
And are brought to their burial like meat to the market — —
More bitter than death was this death: to be suddenly battered and riven
and crushed…
The limbs and the pieces of flesh that the Jews have collected to lay to
rest
From the Editors’ Note of Issue 5
This special English language issue of Yehee has been in the works
for some months. The project was born of a desire to bring Israel’s
oft unheard voices to an English-language readership, broadening
the discourse around Israel, Israeliness—and around the politics of
contemporary poetry as a whole. The atrocities of October 7th make
this mission all the more urgent. The depraved assault on innocents,
the baying of mobs for Jewish blood in the streets of the world’s cities,
and the venomous purring of elites in its classrooms and boardrooms
for the same, have taken far too many by surprise.
…
In the men’s yoga class
we beat our swords
into mats.
Grew winglets
and skipped
sketched circles
with our beards.
Guided we groped
for the body’s
deepest void
and feared
were the walls transparent
surely they would laugh–
the residents of the neighboring village.
Translation by Helene Roumani
2019, GIF
Soros says raise your hands.
Soros says turn the other cheek
and serve it at room temperature on a silver plate bordered in gold and
studded with diamonds.
Soros says jump in place.
Soros says stick the knife in
Soros says spin twelve times counterclockwise
Soros says change your sex.
Trans. Michael Weingrad
Issue 05 — English Language Issue
Selection in Translation
התשפ”ג 2023
Editor > Elhai Salomon
Issue Editors > Batnadiv HaKarmi, Michael Weingrad, Yisrael Medad
Editorial Board > Talila Ziffer, Yossi Suede, Tsur Ehrlich
Uri Zvi House The Vibrant Culture of Jerusalem
Hila Karabelnikov Paz > Cave of the Patriarchs, 2007-2008,
masking tape and wallpaper on canvas, 190×160
We are tightrope walkers,
our land turned circus.
Up the slope, down the slope
with Torah scrolls, bells and spangles
our motley shirts
stained orange
we are girls advancing lightly
and babies leaping from carriages,
carried away from us
our boys and men
rush around making wishes
crushed between a rock and a hard place
a boulder hanging above.
Yehee — Political Poetic Journal