Here are a three aphorisms for our age, and all ages:
You may not be interested in folly, but folly may be interested in you.
You may not be interested in mendacity, but mendacity may be interested in you.
You may not be interested in duplicity, but duplicity may be interested in you.
These thoughts came to mind upon my rediscovery of the 2003 free verse poem “The Worst Thing”, by author Eric L. Rozenman, in light of opinion prevailing among the interchangeable bien-pensant of the “West” – the overlapping elites in the spheres of academia, diplomacy, foreign policy, the “news media”, and “popular” culture – concerning Israel and the Jewish people, subsequent to the events of October 7, 2023.
Mr. Rozenman’s verse appeared in the February/March 2003 issue of Midstream, having originally been published in a Yiddish translation by Herman Taube in the 2000 issue of Der Onheib, and is as pertinent now as when first penned twenty-four years ago.
Here it is, for your consideration.
THE WORST THING
ERIC L. ROZENMAN
War is not the worst thing.
War is every horror —
Mind-numbing desolation.
Mangled limbs, burning flesh.
And a million blasted dreams.
But war is not the worst thing.
The worst thing is
When they come in jack boots and steel helmets.
With bayonets and barbed wire.
To enslave you …
When they come in kaffiyehs, carrying Kalashnikovs and axes
To cleanse the earth of such as you
And your children …
When they come with banners flying.
With terror and tanks,
Even wearing diplomats’ pinstripes
And clerical robes
And always with the words,
The words of self-justification,
Of racial purity or sacred righteousness
And legal moral historical
Hypocrisies authorizing them to murder you
And smash your children’s heads against the wall…
But because you convinced yourself that war is the worst thing
You won’t be able to fight back.
That will be the worst thing.