What began as a war on Israel on October 7, 2023 has spread to a war on Jews everywhere. There are few safe havens for Jews anymore or anywhere. Strikingly evident is that while Jews may live in places across the globe, the only home where they may truly feel ‘at home’ – is in Israel. With many across the Jewish world choosing to express their thoughts in poetry rather than prose,Lay of the Land is providing the space for such expression.
This week we share with you two poems by a former South African and recent oleh (new immigrant) to Israel, 27-year-old Zev Raphael Landau of Tel Aviv.
David E. Kaplan, Lay of the Land Editor.
THE WINDOW
By Zev Raphael Landau
I sit here, watching this window.
This window of history.
I watch as we move across the oceans.
I watch as we survive attack after attack.
I’m glued to the window.
Time moves, and we stay the same.
Joys and successes constant in our lives.
Decades pass.
It starts up again the attacks, the hate, the genocides.
I stare at the window feeling distraught and confused.
Why? year after year. The minority, the last ones picked, the disease?
This window well it’s painted by the lies of those around us.
It paints a picture of distain, a picture of hate.
I move across to the streets and notice kindness and happiness.
I notice the good aspects that we give, that we do.
I notice the joys amongst everyone.
I notice that we are no different to those around us.
The lies that many spread are results of feeling mediocre, feeling that we have something that they do not possess.
It’s psychological, don’t be an ignoramus by watching the window.
Go out for yourself and see the truth.
A NATION OF HOPE
By Zev Raphael Landau
It’s happened again.
The sounds of chaos.
The pandemonium.
People running for cover.
This isn’t new. This isn’t the next big thing. This is reality.
And yet we move. We move with the times. We make do with the delirium.
Each night for most is a night of endless stories.
It’s a lunatic running into the public shelter half dressed.
That one person who always brings their dog, another whose kids terrorise one another.
It’s a friend group that becomes attached at the hip.
It bonds us all. This weird chaos. In a way it’s an adventure of sorts.
One weird big, strange family.
You sit within it all. Take it all in. Every single person in it together.
No matter the skin, the ideology.
Arab, Christian, Muslim, Jew all surrounded by one another below ground.
Below the sounds of rockets above. Below the mutiny of those with greed and envy. It’s a cycle. One where there is no end.
Yet we push through it, we are resilient, a brutal force that cannot ever be pushed down.
It’s in our blood.
It’s in our souls.
We do not know any different. It’s who we are. It’s who we’ll always be. A nation of hope.
About the poet:
Zev Raphael Landau is 27 years old, the eldest son of a family of 5 children. Matriculating at King David High School in Johannesburg, Zev qualified as a Graphic Artist, whereafter he immigrated to Israel, met and married in 2024, Yael Schlagman from the UK and have this month, been blessed with a new born baby – a sabra.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).