The Yom Hashoah Community Arts Project
Even More Poetry
THE CANDLE SELLER OF LODZ
A note from the artist: Poem inspired by reading Holocaust testimony.
About the artist: Susan Dubin is the library and education consultant to the Sperling Kronberg Mack Holocaust Resource Center located in Las Vegas. This position led her to work with the World Federation of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors and Descendants, Generations of the Shoah International, and Association of Holocaust Organizations in organizing their international conferences. As a library and education consultant, she provides classes for Clark County School District teachers and students in Holocaust education. In addition, she organizes community events that feature authors, artists, and musicians. Kol Isha: Poems in the Voices of Women from the Bible was her first book. She has five other titles which include Book of Ruth, A Passover Haggadah in Poems, Katzele and the Silver Candlesticks, Jewish Stories and Poems All Around the Year, and, The Story of Esther. She is also one of the authors of the original play Give My Regards to Broadway which debuted at Sun City Anthem’s Freedom Hall in October, 2022. Her work in progress is Voces Feminae: Poems in the Voices of Women in the New Testament. Susan was the recipient of the Dorothy Schroeder Award and Fanny Goldstein Award for contributions to the field of Judaica Librarianship as well as the Milken Family Foundation Distinguished Educator Award. In 2021, she was named Nevada’s Jewish Educator of the Year for 2020. Susan is also listed in Who’s Who in Education and Who’s Who of American Women.
by Susan Dubin
NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM
A note from the artist: "Next Year In Jerusalem" was one of the first things I wrote after October 7. The agony of seeing my home, my history, and my right to sovereignty denied, and most shockingly, the suffering of my people celebrated and justified. I wanted to write something soft about our collective strength as an ancient and resilient people that would maybe sway some hearts from hatred towards compassion.
About the artist: I am a transgender, disabled, Jew. I am a part-time gardener and aspiring author and forest dweller.
by Mason Gordon
THE PLUM TREE
A note from the artist: I wrote this poem about thirty years ago and shared it publicly for the first time at a poetry reading, with my father in attendance. *The Plum Tree* was eventually published in the Annual Passover Literary Supplement of the Canadian Jewish News. My late father endured much pain and many difficulties in his childhood and teen years, and then lost so much more because of the Holocaust -- friends and family, opportunities, his home, his livelihood -- and suffered greatly. Nonetheless, after the war, he was able to rebuild a life for himself, exploring new opportunities, making new friends, engaging in different experiences, and ultimately getting married and creating a loving family and home. Shortly after my parents bought their first and only house where they raised three children and lived out the rest of their years, my father planted a plum tree in the backyard, symbolically setting down roots.... ...and that tree -- and my dear father -- are what inspired this poem.
About the artist: Pearl Adler Saban often explores the Holocaust and other Jewish themes in her poetry. She also writes personal essays and book reviews. Her words have been published in Canada, U.S., and Israel, both in print and online. Pearl has worked in book publishing for over thirty-five years, and is currently a freelance editor and copy editor.
by Pearl Adler Saban
BLUEBERRIES
A note from the artist: This poem is about my mother who was a Holocaust survivor. One of my happiest childhood memories is of picking blueberries in the Catskills. I always wished we'd find the best berries and that my mother would bake us a blueberry pie. Before the war, she had finished law school in Warsaw, and only now do I understand that picking berries, baking pies, was not the life she had hoped for.
About the artist: Paulette K. Fire's short stories, essays, and poems have appeared in Harvard Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Potomac Review, Carve Magazine, The Pinch , Unbroken, Capsule Stories, Paper Brigade Daily, the Jewish Literary Journal, and Lilith. Her essay, "Presumably Murdered," was chosen as a Notable Essay by The Best American Essays 2019.