Poem | Of All the Peoples by Nathan Alterman
When under the gallows our children cried
We did not hear the world’s wrath.
For of all the peoples you selected us
For us you loved and sanctified.
For you selected us of all the peoples
hose of France, Japan and Norway.
And when our children march to the gallows
Smart Jewish kids, they all know
That their blood does not count and say
Mom, turn your eyes the other way.
The iron devoured day and night
And the holy Christian Father in the city of Rome
Did not come out with the icons of Christ
To stand one day in a pogrom.
To stand one day, one single day
Where for years like a lamb
A small
Unknown
Jewish kid
Stands alone.
Great is the worry about sculptures and paintings
Lest those art treasures are destroyed in a raid
But the heads of infants, art treasures they are,
Are smashed to the walls, and crushed on the...