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

This piece comes from a writer in the Dias­po­ra as a trib­ute to his friend Yoni who was killed in Be’eri on Octo­ber 7.

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. 

You killed me 

in my kibbutz

of Be’eri.

You came at sunrise

shoot­ing hate

in your cow­ard­ly way.

You killed me,

but not my children.

They are alive.

You killed me.

But not my love,

nor my soul.

I am here stand­ing in front of you,

and I still have com­pas­sion for you, 

for your brain­washed misery.

I am here, 

Untouch­able to your bullets,

your mis­siles pass­ing through me,

your rock­ets can­not both­er me 

any longer.

I am coming,

you can be certain.

I can move fast.

You can­not see me.

I can get you.

I will not take you down with hate.

I will not take you down with weapons.

I will not take you down with anger.

But I will take you down with love.

With kind­ness.

And with life.

I will seed your strip.

I will make it a huge forest.

I will bring life to what you kill.

You claimed to fight for Palestine,

but you fight only for your evil aim,

and you must be stopped

once and for all.

I will seed all the tun­nels you have built,

so that trees will grow in them,

break­ing all the walls of hate 

you have constructed.

The roots will grab your weapons

and will crack them down

break­ing them in small pieces,

like your spines of vile actions

full of dirty propaganda.

The tree trunks will push you out

and all your hid­den quarters 

will be broken.

The fruits will smash 

onto your heads,

mak­ing your brain 

and your heart 

(yes, you still have one deep inside)

to re-con­nect.

You are not sure 

what is happening,

but this is different

and you know it.

The grass will take over

all the crum­bles you have created,

blam­ing others 

as you always do.

The steady bouganvillea 

will hug all the souls

of the human shields

you have cow­ard­ly used. 

The sea will rise

and will take you from the side,

bring­ing a new beginning

with waves of re-construction.

You can­not see me, 

but I am here.

All the Gods are by my side,

you need to bend down now

and become soil.

A soil that will need to bring green life

to more plants and flowers

that are need­ed everywhere.

The strip will be trans­formed into a green forest,

a wood­land in the sur­round­ing desert, 

an oasis of life

and death no more.

All the civil­ians of the strip,

are now free to move to

the State of Palestine.

The State of Israel is next to it,

and we are all

throw­ing flow­ers to one another.

There will be 

no more space for hate,

no more space for wars,

no more space for pain.

The strip will become a won­der­ful oasis,

as a new Jerusalem.

Peo­ple from everywhere 

will gath­er there

to pray and love.

We will all walk 

and pray 

and plant 

some more.

The strip will be for everyone,

in remem­brance 

of all the lives that were lost,

and in awe 

of what love can do 

and trans­form.

Palm trees,

dates, 

avo­ca­dos, 

coconuts.

Pine-apples, 

grapes

and water.

The strip will have it all,

for­ev­er 

and ever

in peace.

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

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