I’m not sure how long it’s been now. I lost track, sleeping in the first cell. There, I curled up in a ball near ten or twelve other women held there, in the dark, small chamber suited for four or at most five. I won’t tell you of the indignity and humiliation afforded us just to use the one toilet, or of the guards who leered at us and made obscene comments and gestures. If any of us dared to even whisper, the guards came in and hit her, sometimes a slap on the face, sometimes a fist to the belly. When they came in, they managed also to touch us on our breasts or bottoms, as many as they could on their way to the offender. We learned quickly to keep silent.

And so, we never learned each other’s names. I am Hannah! I want to scream, but the threat of these brutish men guarding us prevent me from even whispering my name when I am with these sisters of mine. I think it was on the third night that the guards, smelling of sweat and lust, came in and pulled two women out. They screamed as the guards grabbed them, but shut up when punched in the mouth—both of them, as if the guards decided beforehand that this is what they would do. Later we heard screaming from down the hall, and tears, then, again, silence. The women did not return.

The next day, three official-looking men dressed in clerical garb, one like a Christian priest, one like a Muslim Imam, one like an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi. They spoke in quiet voices to the guards. They entered our cell, with two of the guards protecting them, and looked around. Each spoke one name, and a woman stepped forward, answering to each name when the guards gestured that they should respond. The women followed the men out meekly, without even glancing back to those of us remaining in the cell. I noticed that all of my sister inmates gazed at their toes, and seeing the guards begin to survey us, I, too, glued my eyes to my feet.


That night, three of us, including me, were taken out by the guards. I don’t know what happened to the others, but I was taken to an interrogation room. It smelled of blood, I swear. They handcuffed me to the arms of a battered chair, facing a grimy table. There were no windows, not even a peephole on the door. Across from me sat the man who had come earlier, dressed as a Rabbi. He sat on a chair with a sheet spread over it, to protect his clothes from the layers of human filth on it.

“Daughter, if you renounce your so-called husband and agree to live by the Law of G-d, I will be in a position to welcome you back to your Faith. With your making Tshuva, after a year of observing the Law and living with a Halakhic family, I will arrange a marriage for you with an appropriate Jewish husband.”

“Why should I give up the marriage I have, when my husband has been good to me and loving?”

“He is not one of us, daughter. Listen, you must come to realize that HaShem’s plan unfolds. In our time we may even see the Meshiac. This is the truth that Jack Goodfellow and Gentle Robin have led us to see, as the Faiths of Abraham join together in True Belief.”

“Who are Jack and Jill to me,” I responded disrespectfully.

I had heard of this Jack and Robin, man and wife it was said, who had gone on a mission to show the Fabulous Fools that the Fundamentalist Faiths had more in common with each other than they did with secular society, and that they could gain political and social power by banding together. Islamic Revolutionaries, Christian Missionaries, and Jewish Haredis all joined this movement with surprising speed.

“I understand that your experience here in these past weeks has made you bitter,” the Rabbi pronounced with a deep look meant to convey empathy. Weeks? I thought. No, days. It could only have been long, horrible days, not weeks. “Still, you must learn to see the truth the King places before your eyes. If you do not renounce your relationship of the past, there will be no redemption for you. If you do, and show your faith by following the Law of the King of the Heavens, then All of Creation could be yours.”

“And why do you care?”

The Rabbi looked up, as though seeking guidance from G-d above. After gathering the strands of his web, he continued his story for me: “HaShem cares, dear daughter, for all of his Chosen People. You are Chosen, but also given Free Will. You turned away from the King, but in His Mercy, He provides you a chance to return.”

I was about to spit in his face, when he continued, “And this is a unique chance for you to find not only Grace in the World that is Coming, but also grace in this world. Jack Goodfellow and Gentle Robin will visit our little country soon. They wish to celebrate with us the Divine Wonder of the rise of The Federation of Theocratic Governments here, and the embrace of our people of the Justice of HaShem, the One G-d of Abraham.”

“Your Jack and Jill will fetch a pail of water, but we all know what happens next.”

“Daughter, your bitterness saddens me,” said the Rabbi, putting on his sad and empathic faces together. “This is an opportunity for you. They want to show the Benevolence of Our Creator by embracing the Return of Lost Sheep. I have reviewed the cases of each of the women held here. The others are not as deserving of you of this Grace of the Lord. Please, daughter, take this opportunity, for the sake of Jacob our Patriarch, and for the sake of Jacob your father, whom I knew.”

“Who are you to broach my father’s name?” I spit out, startled.

“Your father, although he did not observe Halakha as it should be observed, was still a good man and a Jew. He helped me out once, and now I seek to repay the favor. I can help you.”

“If you seek to help me, then allow me to stay with  my husband.”

“That is not possible. I have not wanted to say this,” he paused a moment, looking pained at the revelation he’d clearly been savoring as his ace up his sleeve. “It is not at all clear that your husband will be allowed to live. He is most recalcitrant, and argues endlessly with all who would talk sense to him. He fights, and spits, and blasphemes the Name while denigrating the Holy Men who would help him. I’m afraid the Evil Urge has taken over his soul, no doubt with the Evil One fanning the flames of rage. I  cannot intervene in his case, even if it were possible. He is without a faith, a product of interfaith marriage, and so without a place in this world or the World that is Coming. Do not insist on living his life, for then yours, too, would be painfully short.”

Despite his mask of sympathy and support, his eyes sparked with an indignity I could feel piercing into me. No veil covered his threat.

“You would have me say that, rather than acknowledge living in a loving relationship, sanctified by our families and community, I should confess to having lived a lie, a sin, and ask to return to…what? You?”

“Daughter, I’m offering you my protection. That is all I can do.” He looked up at the guard standing inside the door. “I will return to hear her answer.” They exchanged a look that left me frozen inside, paralyzed, recalling the screams of women taken from our cell over time.

However, I was not beaten or even touched intimately by the guard. He took my arm, almost gently, although with enough of a grasp to make his strength clear, and led me down the hall away from the cell. He put me here, in this room, where I sit on my bed. My knees hit the wall opposite the one that the bed is along. The door opens out from the foot of the bed. The wall at the head of the bed has a small window, barred, high up. The room is only long enough for the bed, a bit wider. There is a chamber pot under the bed, which another prisoner comes to empty every so often.


I don’t know how long I’ve been here—the light of a day in the window flashes by, while the dark night takes an eternity. Perhaps I have been here a week. Perhaps a month, as there has been blood in the chamber pot. Not two months, though. Not yet. A crow sometimes pokes its curious head through the bars, its brown body barely visible behind its black head, covered in part as it is by its black wings. I have asked it for news, but it does not answer. What is the world outside of this cell like, I wonder? What is coming to the world now?

To be cont’d...

 Part One   |   Part Two   |   Part Three

Part One   |   Part Two   |  Part Three


I don’t know if anyone will read this. I suppose that I must trust that my words will be read. I might be writing to myself, or to my captors, should they find this. Perhaps I write to you, who read this now. If you are reading it, then I have reached someone. Someone will read my story, know I lived. Or, perhaps you will think that I am a phantom imagined by some author, not real, not worth considering. In either case, if you are reading this, then the story lives. I hope you read it carefully.

I know that you will not see as I see, no matter how carefully I write, describe, explain. It is pointless to fill up the page with what I see, touch, feel, taste or hear while expecting you to see, touch, feel, taste and hear as I have. You will only understand my words through your own knowledge of language, your own experience of the world, and your own beliefs. How can I reach  you from this place I call “I” and have you see something other than “you”?  I can’t. This may be why so many popular books and movies used to be all action, car chase, and explosion.

Of course, since the Federation of Fools, as I call them to myself, have taken over, such films are banished to memory. Only those films that present the fundamentalist religious view may be shown, if any films at all. Many of the Federation of Fools’ ban film, books other than approved Holy Books, and  art altogether as idolatry and sinful. So likely the fate of these pages, should they fall into the hands of the Federation of Fools or its operatives. If you are reading this and not one of the Soldiers of G-d, then I trust that somehow this time has passed and my story continues.

What story, you might ask. For I have only written so far about writing and told no story. I have not shown, but told you my thoughts. What sort of story teller am I, you could wonder. One who worries that stories can’t be told, I would answer. That I can’t tell them because what I tell would not be understood as I intend. Yet, no matter, I must try.
 
Yesterday, I worked for a high tech company in my small corner of the world. For such a small corner, though, my country receives the gaze of the world. That is not my story, though. I went to work where, as I tell my family and friends, I try to break things. Well, not things. Software. I test software, trying to see how, where when and why it doesn’t work. I try to do with it things that it is supposed to do, but also try to imagine what others might do with it that is not intended, and test what happens then. Like, what happens if someone types the letter “q” when the instructions in the window on the screen direct the user to type a “y” for yes or an “n” for no. Does the software ask for a yes or no answer again, black and white binary logic, or does it decide to quit in response to “q”? Perhaps it does nothing, but stalls, not able to process “q” when it expects “y” or “n.” This is what I did, yesterday. I tried to stop the software before we sent it to the user, so we could fix all of the unintended stops. Of course, we don’t fix all of the bugs. We fix most of them. We just can’t anticipate every thing any one person, or all of the single users added together, might do with the software. In this way, software is very much like words, stories, and language itself.

At any rate, this was my job. I went to the building where I work yesterday morning, entered the office where my cubicle rests, and began testing software. About an hour later my supervisor entered the room and asked me to go to an emergency meeting of all women employees in the cafeteria. Now. Of course, I went.

There, I heard all about how our small country now joined the Federation of Fools, surrendering its authority to make laws, develop policies, enforce law, or ensure freedoms. Its role from now on was to provide infrastructure approved by and according to the policies of the Federation only. We were told that we no longer had jobs (except for a few women whose jobs were approved by the overall Federation of Fools or their particular religious federation member). There would be no severance pay. If we failed to return to our homes immediately, change our clothes to meet federation laws of modesty, and serve our husbands according to the fundamentalist interpretations of our respective religions, we faced humiliating, horrible and public punishments. Federation morality police handed out identification cards to each of us according to our religion. Clearly, they had this well planned and knew all about us.

Some, like myself, did not meet Federation guidelines for a religion. I was given a writ confining me to my house until my husband agreed to divorce me and otherwise free me to meet certain guidelines of my parents’ religion. He would be banished, a non-citizen, non-person in the Fools’ Paradise.

On my way out of the building, disheartened and weary, I started to take out my cell phone to text him. However,  phone no longer worked. Company security women and Federation Foils greeted us at the door and demanded that we turn in our company identification, keys, phones, car keys for our leased vehicles, and anything else deemed the company’s. We were shepherded into tents, where the women ordered us to remove our outer garments to our underwear, and then they searched us. The Federation Foils derided those wearing improper outer and under clothing, reminding us that from now on only morally accepted clothing would be allowed. Any woman found on search to be wearing such clothes as most of us wore, private underwear that might please our husbands or lovers, would be flogged. Of course, any woman caught with another woman in any loving or erotic act would be flogged to death, they exhorted us. Only modest clothing suitable for religious women of high, heterosexual moral values would do from the moment we returned home until G-d took us home.

As they had taken our car keys, the company provided vans to drive us home. Federation Foils rode in the van with us, checking that each person got out and her address and watching that she entered her building. They made the van driver wait for five minutes at each place, too. I guess they wanted to make sure whoever went in did not leave again. This way, it took more than an hour to get to my house, usually only a ten or fifteen minute drive. As I left the car, the foil reminded me that I must convince my husband to divorce me, so that I could join my religious group. Otherwise, he said, I would have nothing: no home, no income, no place to go. Only one fate awaited a woman in such a position in the Federation, I knew. Whore. They might be fundamentalists, but the men still want to have their sex. And, what sin would it be, if they screwed a non-person woman?

I trudged up the flights of stairs to our flat, wondering what I would tell my husband. He is a teacher, and was at home today I knew, as he had no classes at the university but would be reading papers from his students, instead. I heard the voices above me before I saw the officials. My husband had left the door open and not invited them in. They stood on the landing. He looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders. I think he did, too. We had wondered when this would come. The rest of the world, the Americas except Canada, the European Union, and large parts of Asia except for China had all fallen to the internal and external pressures of the Federation.

My husband could not restrain his anger, although  he did not speak loudly or in a rage. He told the official Federation Foils that we belonged to our own religion, and that he worshipped only G-d and only listened to me, as His Prophetess. We looked in each other’s eyes with a smile of love. What else could we do? Neither of us wanted to live without the other. My strong, handsome husband challenged the foils, knowing that we would lose.

They heard me coming up the stairs and turned toward me.

“If you denounce this blaspheming man, the Federation will grant you an annulment and free you from the chains of his sins,” one of them pronounced. He stood upright, his chin in the air, as though he owned G-d’s Creation.

I shook my head, then answered, “I follow my husband’s religion and traditions.” It was a smart ass answer to these hubris-filled idiots, one designed to allow me to follow my husband’s fate.

One grabbed my husband and strapped plastic around his wrists, his arms behind his back. Another grabbed me and rudely shoved me against the wall. He took my arms, managing to grab my breasts in the process, and twisted them behind me. He pushed his body against me, and then he also strapped my wrists. Before stepping back, he whispered in my ear that he looked forward to finding me in  a whorehouse. I felt so relieved to know that our country’s moral legislation rested in the hands of such holy men.

The haughty-chinned man told my husband, in my hearing, that the guards would go to their religious leaders to see about his request, but I heard mockery in his voice, or perhaps I saw it glinting in his eyes, or just imagined it. Still, I have sat in this dark room with other women, many of them weeping openly, for an afternoon, a night, and now a morning. I judge the passing of time by when I arrived, a meager watery soup served for supper, and a few pieces of burnt bread passed out for what I took to be breakfast. That was many hours ago.

How do I write this, you ask, in such a jail were no doubt I was searched? Yes, I was strip searched, a holy woman putting her gloved fingers where only my husband had touched and where not even my husband had touched. I did not sneak paper or writing implement in with me. I write this in my mind, memorizing every word. When I find paper, pencil or pen, or perhaps even find a computer, I will write this. You ask how it is possible that I am actually writing what I thought, how could I remember every word? It is a good question. I cannot answer it. Yet, we trust the ephemeral electronic memory of machines, so why not the organic and evolved, if equally ephemeral (and perhaps electrical and chemical) memory of a person? Am I a person?

Part One   |   Part Two   |  Part Three

Part One   |   Part Two   |  Part Three

The Hague, January 1, 2012 The Federation of Theocratic Governments (FTG) announced at one minute past midnight of the secular calendar the welcomed Godly capitulation of the former European Union Empire to the FTG demands for religious rule. From now on, all members of the former European Union will abide by the Theocratic Laws of their respective religions, regardless of geographic location or current participation in religious rites or ceremonies. Those without a religion will be assigned a religion based on their parents' beliefs, or if their parents were non-believers, their grandparents'. The Christian Theocratic Global Union has the largest number of new citizens, closely followed by the Islamic Theocratic World. The Haredi-Jewish Unified Creation of Ha'Shem, received the third largest group. The Hindi World of Illusion Government was the largest recipient of the smaller TG partners.
    Under the terms of the agreement, the citizens of each government will follow its religious rules and laws, with religious courts and religious figures serving as adjudicators. The Combined Moral Police (CMP) of the FTG will enforce joint laws, such as those of women's roles, mixed faith gatherings, dating without appropriate religious chaperone, and other obvious moral codes in common among the shared fundamental beliefs of each member of the Federation. Unmarried women were warned to stay out of public places, and all women were dismissed from their employment in all except the Haredi-Jewish Unified Creation of Ha'Shem, where men were dismissed and required to participate in Yeshiva Study while married women worked to support their husbands.
    This marks the last major geo-political government to fall to the ideologically and theologically organized new governments. G-d be praised for the saving of humanity in G-d's image, a divided but fundamentally believing Federation of Theocratic Governments, whose rule of the world is ruled from above.

---

This came out while I was traveling. I have a poem, "Late Night Jazz," in Pirene's Fountain, May 2009 (2:5).

Check it out by clicking here.

J. Louis Larson has posted an online "interview" with me on her blog, under Authors Q & A. I'm the first poet and the first e-Book author to be so privileged. Please check it out and leave comments. Click here for interview with poet and artist Michael Dickel.

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Like a prayer for peace, "There Must Be Another Way." What a lovely song and beautiful singing (English, Hebrew, Arabic).

May peace prevail on earth.




And a nice discussion/ video with the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out."



"Noa, whose real name is Achinoam Nini, is Israel's leading international concert and recording artist. She has toured and sung with rock superstar Sting, performed her song Child of Man with Stevie Wonder for a CBS TV special in the U.S., and shared the stage and microphone with many well-known artists.
     "Mira Awad is an Israeli-Arab singer and actress currently living in Tel Aviv, Israel." (source)

"In addition to the European competition, Awad is about to release her debut album, which she has been working on for nine years, mainly due to budgetary problems.
      "The new album will include 10 songs in Arabic and in English, most of which were written and by Awad (music and lyrics). One of the album's two bonus tracks will be the Eurovision song, "There Must Be Another Way." Noa takes part in another song included in the album, which sang in Hebrew, Arabic and English." (source)

Mira Awad, an Arab Christian, is a stage, movie and television actress trained in music.

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Voices Israel Annual Anthology

The Voices Israel Group of Poets in English annually publishes an annual Anthology of poetry. Volume 35 of the Voices Israel Annual Anthology for the year 2009 is now at the printers.

Submissions for volume 36, to be published in 2010, are welcome until 7 October 2009.  Poems received after that date will be considered for the 2011 Anthology. Anyone, anywhere, is welcome to submit a maximum of 4 poems to the Anthology. Poems should not exceed 40 lines.

Submission Guidelines
also available here

Editors: Our new co-editors for the anthology will be Sheryl Abbey and Michael Dickel.

Deadline: Please send submissions for Voices Israel Anthology, Volume 36 by: 7th October, 2009 postmark or email deadline.

Email to: Voices_Israel_2010@me.com
If you have no access whatsoever to email, you may submit your manuscript by post--follow format guidelines under "What to send," print out one copy of the poems and the cover page:
         Voices Israel Anthology 2010
         c/o Michael Dickel
         9 / 7 Shalom Yehuda
         Jerusalem, Israel  93395

Who may send: Any poet from anywhere in the world. Poems must be in English but may be on any topic and in any style (no translations).

What to send:
♦ Please send one copy of up to four poems of no more than 40 lines each.
♦ We prefer your submission to be by email in a single Word or RTF file— one poem per page, with pages consecutively numbered. 
♦ No identifying information should appear on the pages with the poems.
♦ The acceptance process is anonymous and the poems will be forwarded to the editorial board without names.
♦ On a separate cover page in the same file, include your name, address, email, phone number, titles of the poems as they appear in the manuscript, and a short bio (not to exceed 90 words / seven lines).
♦ No revisions of poems will be accepted after submission!

Fee: There is no fee for submitting poems to the Anthology; however, as a apid-up member of  Voices Israel at NIS100 or US$35 per year you will receive a copy of the annual Anthology at no extra charge. As a member you will also receive the monthly newsletters, notifying you of local workshops and monthly poetry readings that take place in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and Haifa.

Members of Voices Israel, prize winners and honorable mentions in the Reuben Rose competition are entitled to one free copy of the Anthology. To join Voices Israel ... Without membership you may purchase a copy of the anthology in advance for a contribution of NIS 30 / US$15, whether you are published or not (includes shipping).

After the Anthology is published the price will be NIS 40 / US $20 (plus shipping if outside of Israel).

Checks should be made out to Voices Israel.

Koloniot (Anemone), near Afula, Israel

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On May 5th, my ebook, The World Behind It, Chaos, will be spotlighted on Serenity Promotions' blog.

Go check it out!

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Each year, I have written in this blog about my experience on Holocaust Remembrance Day, my act of re-membering (22 April 2007; 1 May 2008).

This year Israel and I are more part of each other, I suppose. In reading through my entries for Yom HaShoah (Shoah Remembrance Day) for the past two years, I notice that I am moving more and more to the interior, though. The first year, I was on a bus in Tel Aviv (riding to work) when the siren went off at 10 am. Last year, I walked out of my flat and observed a man on the street. This year, I stood inside my flat when I heard the siren, rising from my computer for only the two minutes.

Yesterday morning, I drove from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. On my way out of Jerusalem, a gridlocked intersection held me up so that it took more time to get across Jerusalem then it took me to drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, park, and go up eight floors to my appointment. The gridlock embodied the traffic craziness I wrote about in the first year’s entry on Yom HaShoah.

Cars moved out into the intersection when the light turned green, whether or not there was room. They pushed at each other from every direction, making turns into the jumbled mass of other cars. When my turn came at the front of the line, I tried to wait until a place opened in front of me across the intersection, but it was futile. Two drivers behind me honked their horns and, after the light cycled a couple of times without our being able to move, pulled around me into the left turn lane and just went out, pushing their way into the tangle of cars and trucks.

Eventually, after several cycles of red-yellow-green, I inched out into what little room that opened before me, eventually pushing into the intersection as my light returned to red. Cars from the cross road still had not cleared the intersection, but more poured into whatever space they could find. It was total anarchy, as though there were no traffic lights. A police car had driven through earlier, beeping and calling on the loud speaker to get through, but not doing anything to stop the gridlock.

Perhaps this intersection provides the metaphor for the Middle East. This year: Israel’s relentless war on Gaza that cost so many civilian lives, two years ago Lebanon, continuing rockets from Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north (if diminished in number), individual and collective acts of terror, State and individual acts of oppression and racism, religious and political fanaticism—all pushing into the intersections of humanity, blocking any path toward peace.

Today, standing and remembering the Shoah, the holocaust of over sixty years ago, I also wished, as in years past, for an end to genocide, war, oppression, and racism of our own time. Yet I find that I am becoming more quiet, more interior—I sit at my computer, I write my thoughts, and I move on. Like the siren’s wail, I have made my brief point, then faded into a memory. I won’t push into the gridlock of war; but I do hope to make some progress at each intersection with another human.

This is my third Yom HaShoah in Israel. May the fourth have more to celebrate in the re-membering of humanity and our travails against the smoke and fires of hatred.

Fisherman at Sunset, Mediterranean, Israel

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