This piece is one of an ongo­ing series that we will be shar­ing in the com­ing days from Israeli authors and authors in Israel.

It is crit­i­cal to under­stand his­to­ry not just through the books that will be writ­ten lat­er, but also through the first-hand tes­ti­monies and real-time account­ing of events as they occur. At Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, we under­stand the val­ue of these writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ni­als and of shar­ing these indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. It’s more impor­tant now than ever to give space to these voic­es and narratives. 

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, JBI is record­ing writ­ers’ first-hand accounts, as shared with and pub­lished by JBC, to increase the acces­si­bil­i­ty of these accounts for indi­vid­u­als who are blind, have low vision or are print disabled. 

They said: ​“Nev­er Again”

But again and again

Impos­si­ble to hear and see

The pain.

Babies and chil­dren, young

Women and men. grandfathers

And grand­moth­ers all disappearing

until when?

Remem­ber­ing again, l’alam ul’al’mei

Al’­maya*, that in every gen­er­a­tion the

Jew­ish spir­it yearn­ing deeply”**.

Amen.

*From the Jew­ish Kad­dish said in a funer­al, mean­ing for­ev­er and ever.

**From Hatik­vah (the hope, in Hebrew), the nation­al anthem of the State of Israel.

The views and opin­ions expressed above are those of the author, based on their obser­va­tions and experiences.

Sup­port the work of Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and become a mem­ber today.