what it feels like now

A weekly poem from Alexander Shalom Joseph

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for your continued interest in reading this weekly poem.

This week I am sharing a poem about what it feels like for me being a Jew right now in the world. I try to focus on the present, local human experience in my poetry work but sometimes I feel as though I must address my own identity and politics and experience in my work.

across the world

the children

who have not yet been shot in the head

starve

and a loved one calls me

to ask if I think she should take down her mezuzah

because she is afraid of people seeing it

when they come into her house

and knowing she is a Jew

she is afraid of being seen as a Jew

and so am I

but that fear is small

for there are no bombs over our heads

and across the world

the children are dead

so many children

more children than I will ever meet

are dead

and I stopped wearing my Jewish star

a month after the bombing began

but I am proud to be a Jew

or at least proud to be part of a people who survived so much

but I am ashamed to see what Jews are doing

and I am afraid of being Jewish now

but I will not hide

although it’s hard for me to know how to stand up

I am afraid of other Jews

of how deep their hatred is

I am afraid of gentiles

of how deep their hatred is

and across the world

Jews have bombed all the schools all the hospitals

they are shooting babies in the head with sniper rifles

and five minutes from my house

a man set an old woman on fire

a woman who was a holocaust survivor

and across the world the bombs keep falling

and I mention feeling overwhelmed and scared

to a group of gentile friends

and the silence that follows is like death

and across the world

the children die

and I meet another young Jewish man

at a party but I don’t tell him I am Jewish

and I change the subject when he brings up the genocide

because he won’t call it a genocide

and I can’t stand to hear that

and across the world

mothers have lost every one of their children

and somebody asked me the other day

what it was like to be a Jew right now

and this is it

all of it

the fear the guilt the fear the shame

the isolation

the fear the horror the anger the fear

and across the world

more bombs are dropping

and even more children

are dying

all the time

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Alexander Shalom Joseph