Before The Abolition Poem by gershon hepner

Pharaoh hated all the Jews
and so, to put them down,
he thought up, dastardly, a ruse,
and told the midwives: “Drown
the baby boys within the Nile,
but let the girls survive.”
He failed. The midwives used great guile
and kept the boys alive,
so he enslaved them all instead,
oppressing them with rigor,
and called them names that can't be said
today like “Yid” and “Nigger, ”
and other ones they didn't like
and caused a lot of fights,
like “Hymie, ” “Zionist, ” and “kike, ”
ignoring civil rights.


A very hardy populace
of former slaves who live
in every great metropolis,
including Tel Aviv,
did not fear that its boys might drown,
“It’s safe to be a Jew,
in numbers that are going down, ”
they thought, so very few
remembered you not only need
a midwife to survive,
but leaders who’re prepared to lead
and followers who thrive,
or else you can’t, though former slave,
continue the tradition
that midwives tried so hard to save
before the abolition.

Things changed a lot, it’s sad to say.
The second intifada
turned sunny outlooks into gray,
diminishing the ardor
of those who thought that Oslo brought
a peace within their time,
and didn’t think that good men ought
fight terrorist and crime.
Then things got even worse, when planes
flew into twinning towers,
and fundamentalists took pains
to topple western powers.
Once more for freedom men must fight,
but all Jews are in peril,
and will be till all men indict
all jihadist as feral.

12/28/98,1/8/99,5/29/05