Relationships Defined: A Reflection Closer to Reality
by Robert M. Katzman © New Year’s Eve, 2017
1) Friend: One of one, or one of many, a preferred person to call, go places with, share experiences, be with when sad or drunk, to defend or be defended by when threatened by words or worse and who when you ask for help, absolutely, positively, shows up.
Pleading with Fate in Jerusalem
by Robert M Katzman © December 4, 2017
I tilted my head to the Western Wall
Trying to summon the words
Conjuring up Fate to listen to me
Surrendering to that which can’t be seen
But nevertheless
Heard
Why do you keep doing this?
You keep taking so many away
No one left to call and say:
Do you remember this perilous time?
Teaching Jericho About Fire on Thanksgiving Day
by Robert M. Katzman Thanksgiving Day, 2017
We’re walking on the beach collecting wood
Thanksgiving Day
Pieces of our family are gathering
First time without Grandma in his short life
And my long one
Her shadow follows us
He’s six and doing his best
I’m sixty-seven and want him to know
To know about wood and fire and so much more
I think about Time and that it’s flowing too quickly
An American Jew’s Bold New Plan for a Sane,Â
Peaceful and Prosperous State of Palestine
(part 9)
© by Robert M. Katzman
Man, I ain’t no dreamer—R. Katzman
Published May 18th, 2007 in honor of my father, Israel, on the seventh anniversary of his death, at age 87. I chose to not update the statistics because they aren’t the point of this article. This is about ideas. About change.
First, some background: My family came to America between 1902 and 1916 from Eastern Europe, where some of my immediate ancestors were murdered during the World War One years and the rest by Hitler later. They were non-combatants. I grew up with grim tales of unending, irrational persecution and in sync with my left-of-center politics beginning in the later Sixties, I wouldn’t wish that kind of terror and life on anyone.
Vad Yashem
Killing a Million Children
(part 6)
by Robert M. Katzman © November 7, 2017
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I didn’t want to come here
I’ve been here before
I know what’s awaiting me
So much older now
I need to feel it again
The jolt of horror
To remind myself
I am still here
We are still here
This is not a story about sex, or passion, or violence, or triumph and vindication.
It’s not a story about bravery, or adversity—well, maybe adversity, but not like
being trapped on Mount Everest in a howling blizzard.
It’s just a little story about a sweet moment, frozen in the amber of my memory.
A fleeting act of kindness and self-discovery, in 1964.
Katherine Evans was a classmate of mine in grammar school for a number of
years, beginning, maybe, in second grade until eighth grade and graduation.
We weren’t friends. I didn’t know her. I didn’t know her family or anything
about her.