Letter to Medinat Yisrael
Junetember Jonez
First I gotta say
That I love you
You won't believe it
Once I say what I gotta say
But it's true
So go ahead
Roll your eyes
Cover your ears
Like you always do
When I say
What you don't wanna hear
Call me a kapo
Do your damnedest
To wipe away my Hebrew name
Carved into the stone of my neshama
But from here on out
Don't say nobody told you so
Let's cut through the shit
And tell the truth
That hurts
I love you
In a way that none of the nations can understand
But tell me
Truly
Do you love me back
I'm starting to doubt that you do
Or that you ever did
Lately all our conversations have been about you
Your needs your demands your trauma your grief your bullshit
Yet where were you
When a Shabbat service in Pittsburgh
Turned into a bloodbath
11 souls were ripped from their bodies
Where were your words of comfort
Your demands for justice
Your guidance to help us
Through our grief and our rage
Where was your Ahavat Yisrael then
I can hear you saying now
Our lives are on the line
This is about survival
If I am not for myself
Who will be for me
To that I ask you
If I am only for myself
Who am I
I can hear you saying now
We don't have time
For silly ideas
Like truth
And justice
And freedom
And equality
And democracy
Or any of your Diaspora nonsense
I hear myself asking
Shouting
Begging
If not now when
And your silence roars
Words of Hamas spew
From the mouths of babes
Who should be studying at school
You cry from every corner of the earth
Shock
Betrayal
Bewilderment
Anger
Fear
Where were your cries
For Charlottesville
As Hamas in red hats
American as apple pie
Marched the streets with torches
Chanting Jews will not replace us
And now you kiss the cheek
Of the same toddler of a man
Whose poisonous words
Ignite the same flames
Of the same hatred
That incinerated so many of our people
And what do you do
You look the other way
And break bread with Amalek
And all it took
Was telling you what you want to hear
Shame on you
For selling your soul so cheap
You say he's good for our people
This false American idol
While the machine of his reign
Grinds us beneath its gears
You say
Just make aliyah
As if you mean
Let them eat cake
Because we're not the Jews who count
Are we
Like the wicked child at the seder
We ask too many questions
You don't want to answer
But God forbid
We cease
Even for a moment
Singing the praises
Of the startup nation
Land of microchips
And cherry tomatoes
Like seraphs singing
Kadosh kadosh kadosh
To the Most High
So here we are
You must be thinking
I hate you
And maybe I do
Just a little bit
The way you hate someone
When you love them too
Because you know
They can do and be better
Because I've seen you
When you're at your best
When you are
A light unto nations
A nation of priests
A holy people
Yes even you atheists
Living and laughing
And loving
The neighbor
The widow
The orphan
The stranger
As fiercely as you love yourselves
The way that our living Torah commands
In this love and sorrow
In this rage and heartbreak
I am as always
Yours
Am Yisrael Chai
Permission
“Letter to Medinat Yisrael” 2025 Junetember Jones
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Printed with permission by author
