Ronald D. Cohen, 'Questions for Shomrim'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Questions for Shomrim

And will my people build a new Dachau
And call it love,
Security,
Jewish culture
For dark-eyed children
Burning in the stars?
Will all our songs screech
Like the maddened eagles of the night
Until Yiddish, Arabic, Hebrew, and Vietnamese
Are a thin thread of blood clawing up the side of
Unspeaking steel chambers?
I know you, Chaverim,
The lost young summer nights of our childhood
We spent on street corners looking for life
In our scanty drops of Marx and Borochov.
You taught me the Italian Symphony

And the New World
And gave a skit about blowing up Arab children.
You taught me many songs
But none so sad
As napalm falling slowly in the dark.
You were our singing heroes in '48
Do you dare ask yourselves what you are now?
We, you and I, were lovers once
As only wild nights of wrestling in golden snow
Can make one love.
We hiked by moonlight
And you asked me to lead the Internationale
And now my son must die
For he's an Arab
And my mother, too, for she's a Jew.
And you and I
Can only cry and wonder:
Must Jewish people
Build our Dachaus, too?

By Ronald D. Cohen
"This poem, first published in the early 1970's, is, tragically, still pertinent today. It was also sent anonymously to a number of rabbis, selected at random, in New York City and posted on traffic lights, lampposts, and other places. The word "Shomrim" refers to members of the left-wing, Zionist youth organizaion Hshomer Hatzair that supported a binational state in Palestine/Israel when I was close to them."