Our Wall - Writing on the Wall

Steps to Follow in the Event of an Emergency

Jane Medved – When the wind sounds like a siren, find a stairwell Within a city, in the event, in the vicinity of pillars. All…

One Schnitzel Away

By Ronit Eitan The freezer door opens, and the cool air hits me in the face, giving a momentary reprieve from August’s unbearable humidity. I…

Tell Me

Tell Me by Yaakov Mascetti I stood alone among a few, Between flags and eulogies, Watching, silently listening. They turned him, slowly and gently, From…

Jerusalem Caesarean

Geula Geurts – for Rachel Goldberg-Polin – In this city there are women who’ve had their bellies split open seven times to fulfill the…

In Rembrandt’s Workshop

By Prof. William Kolbrener I have been sheltering – with Rembrandt. My self-portrait came with Dutch postmarks – inside the parcel, the hemp string knotted,…

Miklat

Vered Tohar – Blessed is my Bubbe Golda Katzikal May her Memory be for a blessing No longer with us But always with me Not…

No Shelter

Noa Offek – I don’t believe in statistics. Let me rephrase — I have too much respect for potential scenarios to accept the flattened statistical…

Helter Shelter

Mendel Horowitz is a practicing psychotherapist in Jerusalem My grandparents had their silence, Noah had his ark. My neighbors have their refuge On the second…

Life Sentence

Roy Atadgy is a novelist, living in Westchester, Pennsylvania I’m known to hide in sentences. Living between punctuation, Rubix-cubing words, interrogating them, inspecting them obsessively––this is…

Shelter in Place

Batnadiv HaKarmi is a Jerusalem based painter and writer May the Place console you amongst the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem – Traditional Jewish blessing…

Pikachu Jew

Erica Landis is a NYC-based writer – I once dressed up as a giant yellow Pikachu. I was newly in crush with my now husband…

Gimme Shelter

By Maya Sela – Host of ‘מה שכרוך’ (Ma She’karuch) on KAN Radio (Original Hebrew text below – הטקסט המקורי בעברית מופיע בהמשך) Maybe I’ve…

War Memorabilia

Written at our April 17th Workshop Ever since Day 100, my friend Rachel Goldberg-Polin has asked us all to stick a piece of masking tape…

Mezuzah

Shelly Butcher – For months I’d been putting off placing a mezuzah on the front door of my apartment in the sleepy little community where…

October 7 Made Me a Driver

Lahav Harkov – I got my driver’s license at age 35. I put it off and delayed and deferred it until finally I couldn’t anymore:…

Towers Of Tuna

Gila Green – “You don’t have to buy anymore tuna,” my 19 year old daughter said. “We have enough here for a…” She declined finishing…

Would You Step on my Dance Floor with a Machine Gun?

Emilie Vallieres – The late afternoon light is the one I prefer It makes the life around so much brighter The wind calms down, yields…

Will I Be the One Who Pays?

Boaz Zaidler – It is not easy for me to write about October 7th without mixing in politics. And though we saw it coming, it…

The Stench of Death

Dr Mehak Burza – I was in Phuket, Thailand on October 7 getting ready for a day-long boat ride while answering emails about the virtual…

‘That’ Day

Professor William Kolbrener – That day my life changed. I stopped writing scholarly articles; I put aside a book project. After October 7th, I left…

My People, My Son

Erica Landis – The smell of chlorine. On my clothes, on the red terry cloth towel. I can’t stand the color red. Even before that…

‘I Wonder What Her Name Is’

Naomi Ruth Henoch – It’s a leap year. It’s a leap day. It’s one extra day for the hostages to remain in captivity. One extra…

Oct. 7th has been good for me

Oct. 7th has been good for me. I was cynical; now I am sober. I was depressed, now I am very sad. I was here,…

Finding God at the Rijksmuseum

Finding God at the Rijksmuseum – William Kolbrener I spent 15 years studying in yeshiva, but did not know what it meant to believe…

Milk and Honey

i taste blood on my lips when i kiss you my hands, sticky crimson grasp at your lapels pleading for attention, for compassion — it…

My shoes could be there

Over the past week, several people have asked me about my shoes. I kept my old army boots, and I wear them every day. They’re…

Solomon Sousa

Jerusalem Shuk Artist

The Day the University Died

William Kolbrener The only hope for the Humanities, and the Liberal Arts, and the American University, had been the eradication of antisemitism from its midst.…

Poetry Against Poets

Naomi Ruth Henoch, written in a WW Workshop the week after October 7

Suspended High Above

My balance hangs between outstretched arms and pointed toes. My taught muscles work by rote. I am suspended high above you, so that I am…

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