Kedoshei Adar

by Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

A family is slaughtered
Like animals
A three-month-old baby
Shechted like a korban.

A four-year-old
An eleven-year-old,
Slashed
Punctured
For no crime
Innocent as can be.

Jew
Jew
Being a dirty Jew
Is all that mattered.

A young mother
Ambushed in her bedroom
A young father
Sliced as he slept.

Peace
Peace
All they talk about is
To make peace.
They agitate about the poor Palestinians
A nation
Which never existed
A ragtag band of
Murderers.
They need a state
A launching pad
For terror
Murder
Mayhem.

Give them land
Money
Weapons
Diplomats.

They will respond with
Responsibility
Civility
As human beings.

How many times
Will this happen
Before we learn
Our lesson.

The world doesn’t care.
They just don’t care.
They don’t even make believe
that they care
About us.

They wish
We would
Go
Away.

Wither
Shrivel up
Dry out
Die

All across
Arab lands
People are dying
For freedom.

America is
Silent.

The world’s leader
The beacon
Of freedom
Of democracy

Doesn’t lift a finger
To help

Arabs desperate for
Freedom.

She is only
Concerned with the Palestinians
A fictitious group
Who never had a land
A leader
A country.

Terror is their weapon
Language
Power
The reason anyone pays attention to them.

The month
Of
joy
Turns
to
sadness.

Mourning
replaces
masquerading.

Korbanot hashalom
Evicted from
Gaza
For peace.

Found refuge
In
Ariel.

Itamar beckoned
Udi to teach
In the yeshiva,
Ruti cared
For the
Children.

With simplicity
Kindness, charity,
And deep bitachon.

They believed
They would
Bring
Moshiach.

It wasn’t
Meant to be.

Their children
Will carry on
The dream
The mission
The ambition.

Mysterious
Are
Thy waysHashem.

The wait
Is
Unbearable.
The pain is
Crippling.

The cries
And
Sobs
Melt battle-hardened hearts

How much pain
Can one people
Bear?

How much
Suffering
Is
Enough?

Hashiveini
ve’ashuvah

Al hageulah
Ve’al hatemurah
Re’u mah bein beni
Lebein chomi.

Yado sholach
Bekedoshei Eil
Nilbash sack
Nikshor mispeid
Tzom ubechi.

Chevron Yeshiva
Netanya Hotel at the seder
The 12 bus
The 841 bus
Too many buses to count

Merkaz Harav bochurim
Naharia school children
Sbarro
Ben Yehudah
Yaffo

Dr. Appelbaum
Hillel Café
Entebbe
Sderot
Rechov Shmuel Hanovi

When will it end?

Mitzom ubechi
Lesimcha vesasson
Miyagon lesimcha
Mei’eivel Leyom tov


Wordsmiths
Tongue-tied.

Holocaust survivors
Who thought it was
Finally in the past,
Reliving horrors
Flashbacks.

Hitler killed
One and a half million children

One
Another one
Another one.

The world stood by
Silent

“Never again”
They said
They swore

Once again
Here they go again
Slaughtering babies

Then it was
Amaleik.
Now its
Yishmoel.

A hesped by a chief rabbi
Dragged in a sack into Buchenwald
At age seven
Hidden by his brother.

He survived
So will the young orphans
So will we
So will Am Yisroel.

They kill
Destroy
Maim

We build

We are
ahuvim
berurim
giborim
kedoshim


Vehu yoilicheinu komemiyus
Le’artzeinu