Poetry from the Settlements

Hear O Lord

Hear O Lord, Thy people Israel is one, 

and Thou hast loved Thy people Israel

with all thine heart

and will all thy soul

and with all thy might

and these sons that die on your account all day

shall be in thine heart

and thou shalt remember them diligently in thy heavens

and shalt talk of them:

and when thou walkest by the way

and when thou liest down and when tho risest up 

and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon

thine arm (incandescent blue numbers) and they shall be as

frontlets between

thine eyes (like a sniper's shot)

and tho shalt write them (in blood) upon the posts of thy house

and on thy gates.

The author, Eliaz Cohen, has become an important voice in a greater renaissance of contemporary religious poetry. In recent years, poetry has become one of the key methods of expressions among the religious public. It has become an especially important way for those living in settlements outside the Green Line.  Cohen describes the revival: "Israeli poetry has made space for a different language - for poetry that is at peace with our Jewish roots, with the use of Jewish symbols, Jewish context. Above all it has made space for poetry written by young people who live and create in the settlements, whose environment are the hills of Judaea, who today, like me, like in Gush Etzion. Today, these voices are heard."