by Stacey Z Lawrence
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| Morah Hebrew School Teacher Mug |
I lean on a miniature
sea blue chair, the color of Israel
& conduct my class to the curtain call with a
rudimentary rendition of
Hatikvah. The boys & girls adjust their babushkas
torn from superhero
sheets. They pretend to be partisans, they pretend
to survive genocide with water guns & plastic bricks
plopping the toy props across the stage like burial plots
& the synagogue chapel
explodes
in waves of gratitude reigning
down, micro-rubble crushed
under rubber spinning & spinning
strikes me as my students hold hands
swaying like paper cut-outs
mouthing Hebrew words they
do not understand
squinting & studying me,
their Morah’s lips we blast
out this anthem beak fed from birth
myths spun from milk, guts, honey &
the soot of charred Jews
chanting hollow prayers into green wind
we cradle some bald-cackling madcap
who flies rabid dragonflies beyond his fancy
fence like
Dylan Klebold with a broken console
Boom, Boom, Kaboom,
Fizz, Kaboom, Fizzle, Silence.
He crunches on fried falafel tossing
bits of chicks & peas, digging the edge of
that six-pointed star between his yellow teeth
planting olive trees & Long Island Zionists
beneath Alephs & Bets
like Herzl’s Thieves of the West
his flying monkeys,
stripping us of our Ashkenazi selves
our Yiddish, our guttural cadence,
depositing our smoldering mishpocha
us Kikes still stinking of Zyklon B,
bitter the almond smell of
neglected eggs, shoveling us
beneath BritishpoundsAmericandollars,
wailing limestone.
Author's note: In December of 2023, days after the congregation celebrated my work with my students, the local synagogue fired me, prohibiting my entrance forever. It was the first night of Chanukah.
