Poem: Yom Kippur Observed in Palestine

Thursday, 30 September 2004, 1:04 pm
Opinion: Genevieve Cora Fraser

Yom Kippur Observed in Palestine

By Genevieve Cora Fraser

On high alert
For Yom Kippur
Guards deployed
At synagogues
Stood at attention
As Israel Defense
Shelled a Palestinian
Hospital six children
Wounded in the Gaza
Strip medical equipment
Punctured with bullets
As a rabbi guided
His congregation
To right the wrongs
Against God and man
Israeli forces opened
Fire wounding
Dozens of civilians
During a peaceful
Congregation
In Hebron
Protesting Israeli
Troops razing
Palestinian
Farmlands
Steel clubs
Met flesh
Tear gas eyes
Bullets sprayed
Dazed Hope
Of divine
Intervention
During troubled
Times for the Jewish
Faithful the day
Of repentance
Of holy convocation
When you afflict
Yourself atone
For transgressions
Israeli armored
Vehicles swept
Into refuges camps
Shooting at houses
Rampaging bulldozers
Pushed toward
Fleeing children mothers
Collapsing homes
Bleeding fathers
On Friday
Before sundown
Three Israeli tanks
Stormed Al-Salam
Neighborhood
Judaism has standards
Of behavior
Commandments
One must observe
Israeli soldiers
Manned checkpoints
Hundreds waited
Machine guns opened
Fire indiscriminately
Soldiers punched, kicked
Struck with rifle butts
A young man returning
Stuck at the checkpoint
Closed by Israeli troops
In defense of Yom Kippur

ENDS

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