Ukraine Became Masada
by Robert M. Katzman February 28, 2022
When President Zelensky telegraphed:
Come and Get Me You Son of a Bitch!
A flat lonely mountaintop
In Southern Israel, named Masada
A fortress of Jews against the Romans in 73 AD
Held out for two years
Against impossible odds
Then when the Roman’s thousands finally
Reached the top
The 900 Jews killed themselves
Rather than become slaves to the Romans
***
When the Jewish President Zelensky
Representing perhaps a half of a per cent
Maybe a hundred thousand Jews
Out of Ukraine’s 43 million
Told America when they offered him
A flight out to safety
Knowing he was going to
Be hunted down by Putin
And Zelensky –
God Bless him
Retorted:
“I don’t need a ride
I need ammunition!”
****
He became the symbol of defiance
A King of the Ukrainians
The Ukrainians transformed
Into 43 million doomed Jews
Waiting for the Russians
On the top of Masada
Women and children sent to Poland
Old men
Young boys
Ready to die for their country
****
Mototov Cocktail Bombs
In old wine bottles with rags afire
Against steel tanks and troop carriers
Invading their country
Suddenly not a Ukrainian army of
250,000 soldiers, but
A country with ten million’s of men
Daring the Russians to Come
Ready to die for their country
Just like in Viet Nam
Impossible to defeat
Men determined to
Die for their country
***
Suddenly ordinary people
For certain many women as well
Find the moment in their life
Where they discover who they are
What they are made of
And what they’ll die for
***
Like the overwhelming Army of Rome
Coming to get those 900 Jews atop Masada
Russian’s massive army rolling into Ukraine
Coming to crush the “helpless”
Millions of Ukrainians
Will discovery a deadly country
Filled with defiant Zelenskys
That Big Russian Bear
Storming into Ukraine
Right into the lethal gripping Jaws
Of the Heroes of Ukraine
***
Today I hope all the Ukrainians are Jews
I hope all the Jews are Ukrainians
And I hope the Russian Army
Finds their doom
In an invincible Ukrainian Masada
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Turn my torrid words
Into bullets from your souls
Ukrainians Unite!
Never Surrender!
***