What could it do
To a people to learn
So many family members
Were beaten and burned?
Humiliated,
Massacred and
Hounded
From home.
Across countries,
Centuries.
Culled in crusades,
Murdered by catholics
In Castille, Seville, Aragon
Who preached a ‘universal’ spirit
Of hatred of other faiths, other people
And were themselves
Immune to Jesus.
‘Encouraged’ to convert
By inquisitive Christians
Nothing you did was enough,
To keep you safe.
Expelled again
En masse.
Arriving somewhere new
With little more
Than hope and each other
(though there is little else)
To rebuild your lives, in places like:
Odessa, Kishinev,
Salonika, Warsaw.
We all know how that ended.
The hell where words must fail.
It takes gumption,
Mass murder.
Particularly
The women and children.
Your people have long known,
Too many have the stomach for it.
After so many losses
Your wandering family
Now has a home
To be defended
With everything you have.
You refuse the historic victim role,
There is nowhere else you will ever go.
It takes chutzpah,
Writing poems
About humanity
And suffering
To the Israelites.
(Though I try
To be a gentle guy).
Forgive me:
I would have spoken out too
For your people
In their great suffering.
But not because
You are Jewish,
Or I am a Jew.
It is because we are brothers
(From a different mother)
And we know
What men can do,
That I must speak to you.
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Jews_from_Spain
