Shtume Shprakh (Mute Language)
Shtume Shprakh (Mute Language)
(originally in sonnet form)
I looked around — and saw that half
of my years are fading on the dirt road;
that over my life, there closes,
from my burial shroud, the first pale fold.
So I doubled up like a swallow,
that no longer finds her nest under the roof.
From youth I separated in mute language —
as a cow that accompanies her calf to the
slaughterer’s knife.
And old age starts to gnash with wrinkles,
The “Here lays hiddens” are embedded deep in the
skin of my countenance,
And pushes to the grave, and steeply accelerates
my fast decline toward there, where hair and whip
silence screech and hand-wave, where between walls
of silent grave rest legs and arms.
— Translated by Itzik Gottesman
Jeremiah Hescheles passed away October 16, 2010. Read a tribute to him here.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chiefSupport our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
