The KlezKolorado Zine - Volume One

Letter from the Editor

Art has never existed in a vacuum. Music and dance are impossible to separate. Fine art speaks to songwriting speaks to memoir. Poetry and fiction feed each other. All the creative disciplines need one another to survive.

Jews have never existed in a vacuum, either. Throughout the expanse of diaspora, we can be found everywhere—from the cities we populate by the tens of thousands, to the most farreaching rural communities. We, too, are inseparable from one another. Though we encompass a vast diversity of cultures, practices, and beliefs, there is an undeniable thread that connects us all.

We believe that this vastness, this diversity, and this diaspora is worth celebrating. It’s part of why we started KlezKolorado. We want to preserve our little corner of Jewish culture, and help it grow in our own local community. We want our reach to extend beyond music—we want to uplift voices of all kinds of creatives. Without one another, our art—and our lives—would certainly be less rich.

In this issue, you’ll find work from five creators in the Colorado Jewish community. From painting, to memoir, to Yiddish poetry in translation, every piece has been selected because it centers an aspect of the creator’s Jewish identity. We hope that in these pages you’ll find a piece that speaks to your identity, too.

A sheynem dank/Many thanks,

Raye

Yiddish poetry in translation

By Daniel Eisenberg

These are two poems I by the Yiddish poet, Yehoshua Latzmann (1906-1986). He was born in Lithuania, suvived the Holocaust while much of his family perished. He was imprisoned in the Soviet Union for many years and moved to Israel 6 years before his death. These poems come from his collection TehilimGezangen: A Lid Tsum Leben mit a Fartroyter Herz - PsalmSongs: A Song for Life with a Mournful Heart. I found this book 10 years ago in a beloved Jewish bookstore of my childhood called Joseph’s Books. As the shop was closing and I found this Yiddish gem nestled on the shelves. As far as I am aware, there have not been any published translations in English of Latzman’s poetry. I am honoured to attempt to bring his Yiddish words into English.

In these two poems, written at very different points in time, he brings forth both his resignation and rage as well as his joy and gratitude. I hope that in reading them, there can be a sense of how we in our time can hold the multitude of feelings which arise in us as we gaze back at this Yiddish speaking ancestor who was trying to find his way to process the world.

- Daniel Eisenberg

Far Vus?

Es shneiden mir di finger, vi di messer. Zi shreiyen mir in yeyder miternakht:

— far vus hob ikh mit zey nisht oyfgerissen shlesser, far vus keyn soynim kh’hob mit zey nisht omgebracht?

Far vus geblieben seinen zey nor finger oyf oysgedorter un bleikher dorer hend, vus zeyer treyger iz nokh alts a zinger, nisht der, vus geyt fon veyg oyf veyg on brent?

Far vus zey reissen nisht in donner-klep di bricken, vus geben noch dem soyner ven-nisht-wen a veyg.

Far vus zey vorfen zikh nisht vilder soynim shtiken in shvarzer nakt un veiynendiker teg? …

Why?

My fingers cut like knives, they scream to me in the middle of every night:

—why have I not torn open locks with them?

why have I not killed with them the soynim, the ones who hate me?

Why have they just remained fingers on lean hands, emaciated and pallid, whose bearer is nothing but a singer, not someone who goes from place to place to burn?

Why in a burst of thunder do they not tear up the bridges which still give the soyner some way to escape?

Why don’t they hurl pieces of the savage soynim into the dark nights and tearful days?

1944

Ale zeinen shvester, brider meyne shvester henni un rokhle gevidmet mit lieba.

Ot der shney, der veisser, veisser — von a dikhter oysgetrakht.

Vert di gontse velt eyn maiseh

vi mein khoylem in der nakht.

Ikh - a kind, on teg, on yoren, kh’hob di tseit nokh nisht gevusst.

Glatt a kind - bin ersht geborenbei der mamas zissa brust.

Fallt a shney, vert veisse, veisser…

ikh der dikhter gey in shney. zeyd ikh oys fon zeyd mein maiseh

un ikh zing aroys mein freiyd.

— Ale zeinen shvester, brider, Kinna, sinna nisht foran.

Vo nor hertser — fol mit lieder, ikh gey, un es’zingt mein yeyder shpon.

All are sisters, all are brothers dedicated with love to my sisters, Henni and Rokhle

Just as the poet conjures up the white snow, so white so too the whole world becomes a tale like my dream by night.

I - a child with neither days nor yearsI have not yet known time’s behest. Simply a child - a newbornsuckling by my mother’s breast.

Snow falls, becoming whiter and whiter…

I, the poet, step into the snow I spin forth from silk my tale, my maiseh and sing forth my joy:

— All are sisters, all are brothers Jealousy, hatred no longer stings. I go where hearts are full of song and every fiber in me sings.

Between Flames: Reflection on Womanhood

by Ali Delambo

A hole in the temple wall

by Ryan Warner

Dedicated to Blaze Bernstein

The synagogue where I was bar mitzvah-ed is now a Christian church. Browsing images of the exterior online, I find it hard for me to imagine anyone but Rabbi Liebowitz leading services inside. I poke around the church website wondering just what sort of Christianity they celebrate. “Non-denominational,” it says, and “Bible-believing.” There is an illustration of a raised white hand. Each digit represents a core value. The index finger points to Jesus,” according to the adjacent legend. “The pinky finger is for having a little fun.”

When the church took over the building, I wonder what became of the ark and the Torah scroll I traced with a yad at 13. It is as bygone as my Torah portion. My mind drifts to a hallway wall just outside the sanctuary. The one I put a hole in… that needed to be patched. Is the spackle still holding? Did the gentiles erect new walls entirely? Just in case, I shall refer to the hole in the past tense, just as I do my shul.

The hole was created because, one day, I had had enough of the bullying. Temple was supposed to be a safe space (see “sanctuary” above) and, in many ways, it was safe. The older ladies especially took to me, and I to them. But in the early 1990s, the youth at a reform congregation (even one near the gay epicenter of Palm Springs) by and large could not open their hearts to a sissy.

The details of what led me to throw open the hallway door are faint now. As faint as the spackle. I remember most vividly that a Jewish kid at my high school whispered “faggot” under his breath as he passed me one day. I had expected a fellow Tribe member to be kinder, or at least to bite his tongue.

This meant no one and nowhere was safe.

And so came a day when I had reached my boiling point, and a preteen who rarely expressed anger filled with rage. I stalked down the hall from my Hebrew school classroom– hot tears running down my face – and heaved open a door to the front office. The metal handle punctured the ecru wall.

Panic.

A desecration.

Had G-d seen me? Did he side with the bullies now?

My punishment is also a blur. My single mother and I were by no means banished. Soon enough, I came of age paces from the crater I created– pews filled with loving friends and family. The same people I would come out to only a few years later, and who would accept me.

Perhaps today there is a Christian child – struggling with his sexuality – who too flamboyantly walks past this patch in the wall. Maybe its muffled maw reopens briefly to say “בהוא ינא ךתוא” “I love you.” Maybe it is like the Kotel and is stuffed with a scribbled prayer that ends, “וֹמְלְַצַבְּ יִ נׂשָׂ עָׁשֶׁ” ... “who created me in His image.”

I now realize the illustration of the hand on the supplanting church’s website is my own– once capable of destruction, but whose thumb represents love.

Ode to the Beigel Bakers

by Raye Holab

A Diaspora Love Story

by Blair Becker

Zion stares out the window of his 7th grade classroom, watching the snowflakes dance as they fall to the ground. His dark curls flop over his hand, propping him upright so Mrs. Best won’t catch him dreaming. Christmas lights already adorn the classroom walls even though it is hardly November. Of course, no menorah to be found within a 15-mile radius. Figures. A white blanket covers the God-awful, grimy city yet the math teacher continues to drone on about solving for y. Yes, exactly what Zion was thinking. Why? Why be forced to sit in a room full of smelly, pre-teens when Asher is basking in the heat of a Tel Aviv fall? His eyes close tightly.

It was just over three months ago when Zion was feeling at the top of his world, enjoying the summer away from family, away from school, away from the dreary city. He endured nine months of the year just for those three where his whole life was to eat, sleep, and breathe camp – the gaga pit, where he dominated against the little Garin. The palm of his hand would turn black from hitting the ball after hours of playing – a symbol of his reigning success. He loved the Israeli dancing on Shabbos evening, where the girls would twirl in their white, flowing skirts, goddesses flirting with the night sky with a flick of their hands and the prance of their feet. Mostly, though, it was the Saturday night Havdalah service he looked forward to each week; always standing next to Asher where they would sway into one another, one arm around a shoulder and another around a waist, never knowing where one of them began and the other ended.

Asher, with the other Israeli campers, would fly in for the summer. He had been doing so for six summers, and now he was an 8th grade camper, an Avodah. And it showed. He looked different than he had the summer before - his skin tan, his blond buzz cut, his toned biceps peeking out from his tee. And of course, his slow and steady speech.

Other campers would say it makes him mysterious, but Zion knew it’s because he is embarrassed to make an error in English. Asher has always been a perfectionist. Knowing his mind, his fears, his favorite things...it is the most important feeling in the world. Especially because others want a piece of him so desperately. Between the one-year age difference and his pale, city-boy complexion, Zion never knew why it was him who Asher chose to give his attention to all these years. But he didn’t care. He’s the one who trades American comics for his Pesek Zman. He’s the one he tries to teach bits of Hebrew to over turkey (no cheese) sammies at lunch. He’s the one who got to hold his hand. As the candle was snuffed on the last night of the summer, they laid together in Asher’s top bunk.

“The next time I see you, I bet you will be more different than you are now,” Zion squeaked out in a whisper.

“So will you,” Asher retorted with a sly smile.

Trying to quiet their voices so no one in the bunk would wake up was always a challenge, but every year, they stayed up all night sharing a bed and talking until the sunlight hit their eyelids and forced them apart. This year, they had to turn sideways and face one another just so they would fit comfortably.

“Come on, you know what I mean. You’re different,” Zion responded.

Asher looked confused and propped himself up on his elbow. “I’m still the same person I have always been. You look different too, you know. You’re taller now.”

Zion hadn’t thought much about how he came across, just how Asher came across. There wasn’t much time remaining before their bunkmates would begin to wake up. It tore Zion’s heart out thinking about being away from each other for a whole year. It felt different than it did in the past. It felt unbearable this time. A tear blossomed from his eye, and he quickly turned his head to face the ceiling, afraid Asher would see. Asher caught the tear on his finger and grabbed Zion’s hand – tight. Like they were the only two people in the bunk, at camp, in the world. Like he loved Zion as much as Zion loved him.

Asher turned his gaze to the ceiling. They held hands in silence for a long time until dawn broke. It was the best moment of Zion’s life.

“Excuse me, Mr. Abrams?”

“Sorry Mrs. Best, what was that?” Zion’s cheeks turn red, afraid he has revealed his thoughts to the whole classroom with his absent-minded stare.

“If the denominator of the equation is 6, what can be multiplied to determine the variable?” Mrs. Best demanded with annoyance in her voice.

Zion answered quickly and picked up his pencil, starting to count down the days until he would be lying next to his Asher once again.