This poem is an aural palimpsest inspired by and written in response to Sebastian Mendes’ exhibition, “There is a Mirror in My Heart,” Yeshiva University Museum, 2011. “Genizah” attempts to render Mendes’ process of visual layering of names and symbols into an aural medium.
Words, phrases, and sounds:
Shem (Hebrew) name, reputation, character
Shem ha mishpacha (Hebrew) family name
Nome (Portuguese) name
Nom (French) name
Hineni (Hebrew) here I am
Pa’amon (Hebrew) bell
Sino (Portuguese) bell
Cloche (French) bell
Lechem (Hebrew) bread
Pćo (Portuguese) bread
Pain (French) bread
Saudade (Portuguese) a vague, constant and ultimately unanswered desire to know and understand, a longing for someone or something that is lost, a turning toward the past or future
Rickhtik, rekhtfartik (Yiddish) right, righteous
Eyn loshn iz keynmol nisht genug. Ikh bin farloyrn. (Yiddish) One language is never enough. I am lost.
Exodus 33:12 “I have known you by name” (spoken in Hebrew)
Isaiah 43:1 “Do not fear for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine” (spoken in Hebrew, French and English)
The Jewish blessing over bread (spoken and sung in Hebrew)
The Cathedral bells (a Christian call to prayer) are recordings of the bells of Notre Dame (Paris), Cathédrale Saint-Étienne (Limoge), and Cathédrale Notre-Dame des Doms (Avignon). In wartime, bells were melted down to make weapons and were converted back into bells in times of peace. The tinkling bells are a reference to the golden bells that Aaron, the high priest, wore on his robe when entering the sanctuary. The sound reassured listeners that Aaron had not been struck dead in God’s presence.
Voices:
Benjamin Bernard Zucker
Rachel Zucker
Moses Zucker Goren, age 11
Abram Benjamin Zucker Goren, age 10
Judah Darwin Zucker Goren, age 3
Note:
My father was born December 22, 1940, in Nice, France. We are not sure who signed the exit visas that enabled him, his parents and his two sisters to leave France, travel through Spain to Portugal, go by boat from Portugal to the United States to Cuba, and then, finally, back to the United States. Aristide de Sousa Mendes may have been the one who signed one of the several visas necessary for my family to make this journey. I included the actual voices of my father and my sons in my poemvoices that could not be heard or wouldn’t exist if not for the bravery of people like Aristide de Sousa Mendes who risked their lives to help Jews escape the Nazis.
* A genizah is a depository for worn out books or scraps of paper containing holy words, which cannot be thrown away.