'But there were other worlds within my mind so vast no walls could encompass.' Photo: of Kyiv, Ukraine by Maksym Tymchyk on Unsplash
To my sisters and brothers
Poem by Harvey Gillman
As a child I was taught that the Russians and the Ukrainians had a long history of persecuting the Jews. My ancestors were refugees from Lithuania, My heart bleeds for the people of Ukraine and their supporters in Russia. And for the peoples of Palestine and Israel. For the persecuted and their persecutors.
As a child I was taught whom to love,
and, if not love, whom I must learn to hate,
at least to fear. They were kind the older ones.
They wanted me to live at least in partial peace,
to survive a while on a bewildering earth.
They gave me bricks that throughout my life
I would learn to build large and wide and sturdy walls
and so have shelter from a lowering world.
