AMERICAN HISTORY

by Deb Freedman

                                           

Dozens of synagogues across different states have been targeted by “online trolls,” which has disrupted services, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The Jewish advocacy organization said a series of antisemitic “swatting” incidents and fake bomb threats have targeted at least 26 synagogues and two ADL offices in 12 states over the past month. Swatting refers to the act of making false claims to the police with the intention of provoking an aggressive response from authorities at a particular location. —The Hill, August 16, 2023

1965

A swastika

in concrete

inscribed the only path

to my elementary school.

1971

Alone,

our house

was without Christmas lights,

so someone decorated for us

with dogshit.

 1977

In Sociology class,

the captain of our high school’s football team

said Hitler was right

and should’ve killed us all.

Half my class agreed.

Our mild-mannered teacher

exploded.

Rumors spread

she was crazy.

 2005

Our synagogue hired armed security guards

for the High Holy Days

after swastikas and “Kill the Jews”

were spray-painted bloody red

on its brick walls

—an artifice of safety.

2009

A confident junior,

in his oral presentation

I assigned to my Honors English class,

explained all Jews

are rich and greedy.

Some of my class was surprised.

The presenter didn’t understand

why this was a problem;

he’d given a similar speech last year

in History

and aced it.

 2022

At our local supermarket,

the sweet-voiced lady in front of me

in the checkout line,

told the cashier she was so grateful;

her niece healed from cancer

because she prayed for her.

Fervently, she asked me

if I was a Christian.

I smiled.

told her I was Jewish

and believed in the power of prayer.

Her mouth clanked shut

as she hurried from the store.

 2023

My stomach is distended

by history

by now

ordinary.

Deb Freedman is a poet living in Pennsylvania. Her poems have been published in The New Verse News and DVP/US 1’s Worksheets 67.

STEVEN SPIELBERG VISITS AN ISLAND STILL WITHOUT ELECTRICITY IN THE MOUNTAINS TO PITCH HIS REVIVAL OF WEST SIDE STORY

by Mariana Mcdonald

"Steven Spielberg Met With Puerto Ricans About 'West Side Story' Concerns. At a town hall with University of Puerto Rico students and faculty, the director, flanked by screenwriter Tony Kushner, said his remake of the musical will strive for authenticity. Critics say the problems go deeper than that." —Hollywood Reporter, January 15, 2019

Steven, do not bring it back.

Once was enough. Too much,
in fact. Those melodies
for Natalie and Rita—

their perfect brilliance stuck,
made slurs standard,
made us Aunt Jemima.

Staccato steps
Little-Black-Sambo’d
our dignity and dreams.

Don’t bring it back. Instead,
make new sounds.
Tell new stories.

Let the dancers
razzle dazzle
to a voice

you don’t yet know.

Mariana Mcdonald is a bicultural poet, fiction writer, journalist, and editor. Her poetry has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Lunch Ticket, and Poesía en Vuelo, fiction in So to Speak and Cobalt, creative nonfiction in Longridge Review, and nonfiction in In Motion. She edited the 2017 International Latino Book Award-winning bilingual memoir Cartas a Karina by Oscar López Rivera. She is active in social justice movements and the writing community.

BOGEYMAN

by James O. Ferrugia

Image source: Loonwatch.com

The New York Police Department has abandoned a secretive program that dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and built detailed files on where people ate, prayed and shopped, the department said. --NY Times, April 15, 2014


I board an early bird Southwest flight late ― non-stop
LA to Chicago ― scuffle down the aisle dragging
my carry-on to the last empty seat where my determination
to stifle a claustrophobic cattle car feeling is over-
whelmed by the presence of my two seat-mates.

Preconceived notions spread out uninvited before me
like a patchwork perfect quilt of midwest farmland
at thirty thousand feet, notions cultivated
in the rich bottomlands of fear and prejudice
by generations of family and friends and teachers and priests
and pearly-eyed strangers whispering dark-toned warnings
about those people:  japs and jews and niggers and spics
and gooks and guineas and queers and . . . I’m staring.

I excuse myself, shamefaced, and slide into the center
seat as they eye me uncomfortably, lips pursed
behind well-trimmed goatees, fidgeting and fingering
their colorful kaffiyehs with slender, tawny hands, looking for
all the world like strangers in a strange and dangerous land.


James O. Ferrugia lives in Columbia, MO.  His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Solo Novo and Big Muddy; his songs have been published and recorded on the 3-CD compilation, This is My America,  and the Rand Bishop CD, Big Emotions.