I Shall Never Forget You

 By Itzik Dessie

English translation: Mimi Tanaman

I shan't forget, I'll remember you always

Through your endless longing, the dream of a generation.

Reaching for Zion, you sacrificed your souls

To the deserts of Sudan that deprived you of life.

Today, as on this day each year, we commemorate your memory,

Your heroism, and we'll tell of it forever.

A burning sun on faces etched

Lips dry, pierced with thirst,

Pangs of hunger in bellies drawn inwards, shriveled,

As if stricken by plague, your souls are dying.

These horrors assailed my eyes

My people dying, falling like so many flies.

I saw.

If not for your decision to go, while you burned with longing,

If not for your prayers being answered

If not for your vows being fulfilled

If not for your thirst for Jerusalem, you would not have won.

Sights too painful to describe, words are poor conveyances.

A mother's breast, too dry to suckle her infant,

Whose bitter cry and pitiful whimpering elicits no milk of compassion,

The wrath of God falls like a curse,

The infant's hands pulling at its mother's breast

Are met with silence, no mother's response,

Death has won out, her heart is still.

No remnant of human dignity remains, nothing with which to make a coffin.

Your last strength spent, your loved ones you could not cover even with dust.

Their bodies you hide in gaping ditches.

Such a terrible broken travesty.

If not for your decision to go, while you burned with longing,

If not for your prayers being answered

If not for your vows being fulfilled

If not for your thirst for Jerusalem, you would not have won.

Today we say a prayer in your memory,

We gather, we weep for you,

We tell your story and praise your heroism,

That your deaths shall not have been in vain.

Itzik Dessie addressed the End-of-Year Event at Hefzibah, Netanya. For a full report of the event, and the messages that Dessie had for his audience, please see this link http://esramagazine.com/blog/post/year-end-hefzibah