Theos-Talk Archives (October 2002 Message tt00098)

Many thanks for a beautifil sentiment, beauitifully written. In a 
world like the one we live in today, that really is yplifting.

One question: does anyone know who really wrote it? There is no way 
this was written by a Jew, and certainly no way it was written by a 
Jew living in an area controlled by the Commandant of Unit 101. Such 
a person would have been hunted down, brutally tortured, and his 
mangled body put on display in the markeplace as a warning from the 
Commandant to other benevolent persons, if there be such persons 
anymore. After all, as Menachem Begin implied so many times in his 
speeches, the only way to fight fire is with fire. If you have been 
victimized by Hitler, you simply must adopt all his methods and 
become his obedient acolyte.

Let us hope I am wrong, Let us hope this man represents a silent but 
significant body of opinion, and that there uill eventually be peace 
and justice at last.

--- In theos-talk@y..., "Frank Reitemeyer" <dhyana@w...> wrote:
> This poem was sent to Sam in the Westbank, on Yom Kippur.
> 
> A poem from a Jewish friend, Keren, on the Day of Atonement 
T'shuvah*
> 
> For A Nation
> God forgive us
> for hostility toward those we perceive to be not like ourselves;
> for judging the powerless contemptible - though it was we who 
rendered them
> so;
> for believing that we are better, more deserving, and even 
entitled, because
> our own suffering has been so great.
> God forgive us
> for turning our pain into a grisly weapon with which we torment 
others;
> for perpetuating the poisonous cycle - from abused to abuser;
> for despising the stranger, the refugee, the homeless - for 
forgetting that
> we have been all of these.
> God forgive us for the thousands we have displaced and discounted;
> for the land we have confiscated and the homes we have demolished;
> for the trees we have uprooted, and the water withheld; for the 
hearts, and
> bones, and promises we have broken; for the hatred we have 
engendered.
> God forgive us
> for invoking your name to justify revenge and ethnic cleansing;
> for citing Security to legitimize murder and torture;
> for exploiting the Holocaust to defend doing to others what has 
been done to
> us.
> God forgive us
> for the blinders we so carefully fabricate to hide our eyes from the
> humanity of the people we call enemy;
> the same whom history records as kin.
> 
> God forgive us
> for euphemisms, Orwellian doublespeak, and outright lies;
> for hiring high-powered firms to sell myths of innocence and 
righteousness;
> for seeking a face lift for our image instead of atonement for our 
soul.
> May God forgive us.
> May those we have so terribly wronged forgive us.
> *Repentance
> ŠKeren Batiyov, 2002