The child is not dead.
The child lifts open palms to us,
to we who are Jews and Half-Jews,
we whose grandparents ate dirt in diabolical camps
and shrank to dazed skeletal form.
The child stares from sunken eyes
into the coal-black gaze of our Holocaust memory.
The child is not dead.
The child holds out hands
to we whose kin rose in the smoke of Bergen Belsen
and fell elsewhere as ash,
to we whose hearts seem to be turning to stone.
The child is not dead.
The child is there at the window,
watching as we bless and break our Sabbath bread,
as we sanctify and sip our Sabbath wine,
as we light our Sabbath candles
which now fail to illuminate the dark.

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IMAGE: ‘Molten Metal View 2024’. Enamel paint on board by Nicolaas Maritz

The Famished Child of Gaza by Patricia Schonstein After Ingrid Jonker

Blog posted 3 October 2025