Yom Kippur Observed in Palestine

By Genevieve Cora Fraser

September 26, 2004

On high alert

For Yom Kippur

Guards deployed

At synagogues

Stood at attention

As Israel Defense

Shelled a Palestinian

Hospital six children

Wounded in the Gaza

Strip medical equipment

Punctured with bullets

As a rabbi guided

His congregation

To right the wrongs

Against God and man

Israeli forces opened

Fire wounding

Dozens of civilians

During a peaceful

Congregation

In Hebron

Protesting Israeli

Troops razing

Palestinian

Farmlands

Steel clubs

Met flesh

Tear gas eyes

Bullets sprayed

Dazed Hope

Of divine

Intervention

During troubled

Times for the Jewish

Faithful the day

Of repentance

Of holy convocation

When you afflict

Yourself atone

For transgressions

Israeli armored

Vehicles swept

Into refuges camps

Shooting at houses

Rampaging bulldozers

Pushed toward

Fleeing children mothers

Collapsing homes

Bleeding fathers

On Friday

Before sundown

Three Israeli tanks

Stormed Al-Salam

Neighborhood

Judaism has standards

Of behavior

Commandments

One must observe

Israeli soldiers

Manned checkpoints

Hundreds waited

Machine guns opened

Fire indiscriminately

Soldiers punched, kicked

Struck with rifle butts

A young man returning

Stuck at the checkpoint

Closed by Israeli troops

In defense of Yom Kippur