THE WAR CRIME BLUES

So much justice promised, then left unpursued. What's today's blood-drenched headline? My Lai? Haditha? Gaza? Saada? Take your pick of genocides.

FRAGMENT FROM AN UNFINISHED NOVEL:

Just before his execution, a chaplain offered to pray with the condemned man. He refused politely, asking instead, “Do you mind if I have a moment alone with the blues?” The man of God asked to be let out of the cell and the prisoner about to die be given a moment of solitary reflection.

He had been captured, along with a group of other enemy troops who had surrendered. Two of his brothers had perished in the same battle and he felt shame for not dying as bravely in vain as they had. Out of grief and guilt, he summoned them by name so that they might share the chance he had been given for the final contemplation and beseechment (if any) of which they had been deprived. He left behind no parents, no wife, no children. It was just the three brothers facing the end of their lineage.

Ahmed was his name. Soon it would no longer belong to him. Acknowledging that dispossession, he offered his last prayers for any and all others with his name. He begged God to let their names belong to them for far longer than it had belonged to him.

I was the chaplain whose company he refused. And I decided then and there to leave the priesthood so I could recuse myself from having to offer anymore prayers for the doomed. I still atone for all those I failed to comfort and the vanity of thinking I could have been a source of solace.

God didn’t die that day. I just became an ex-hoarder and junked any amulet or reminder of belief. Had I ever not taken the name of the Lord in vain by praying for the surcease of suffering he did not ordain? Had I ever used the word “God” for purposes it was meant to serve? No, And now “God” is as much a relic as the religion I practiced. Even if there was a Prime Mover, I tell those who accuse me of atheism, we have lost all right to His existence. Burn your yarmulkes, I tell Jews, just like you did your draft cards once upon a time when killing for country or creed was still a sin. Keep your gaze on Gaza and disallow yourself any sight of Jerusalem.

Les Jazz Modes, When the Blues Come On, 1956

THE WAR CRIME BLUES
1
Israel’s on a rampage. 
Every Jew I know 
has morphed into a willing helplessness
during the final chapter of their history.
Is it triumph when victims become victimizers?
If so, I prefer the defeat 
of any dominion based on dominance.
 
2
Israel is a variant of Blake’s "fearful symmetry,"
this one based on balanced bloodbaths.
Semites wearing yarmulkes
kill Semites wearing kufis.
I who have worn both
take refuge in park bench neutrality.
There I vow bereftness
of any and all denominational garments.
There I find primal anonymity
that makes me as indivisible 
as the air I breathe.
There I find the oblivion 
of the conjoined humanity 
I live in constant fear of losing.
 
3
Arabs are the new Jews,
caricatured like the old Jews
of Nazi propaganda
by the progeny of genocide.
Zionists they call themselves
who know no other circumstance and ceremony
than self-pity to mourn and worship.
Zionists they call themselves,
Hitler’s hate children 
out for human scapegoat blood.
What will they do when the blood bank
goes bankrupt and they must live in default
of human lambs to lead to slaughter?

4
I don’t follow the news anymore.
It’s the same story 
as if the world has chosen
to follow one plot line
in a constant sequel
that echoes itself.
Nabkas every day and everywhere.
They wear me out.
 
5
The scythe makes a swift soothing breeze
before and after it strikes.
Maybe the cut worm can forgive it
but the beheaded have no such instinct of compassion.
Battle grounds are not play fields of the Lord.
The dead must find cool and quiet in the grave.
There they lie doen in stilled streams of tears.

6
When did being Jewish
become a secret I must keep?
When did Zion become Hell on Earth?
I have decided it better 
not to answer these lifelong questions.
I have decided it best
to cease to ask them.
I hoped for a more fruitful future,
but beggars cannot be choosers.
Refuse the conqueror's crumbs.
Feast on as much non-complicity
as you can manage.
Let history take its bloody course on its own.
Practice park bench Zen.
Stay put and pay attention 
only to the bird calls and animal cries
that interrupt the silence
to join it.

—David Federman, Mother's Day 2025

Mandy Patinkin, No More (Stephen Sondheim), 1989