The Neila

Jacques Taraboulos

1945

The end of the day approaches.
The Book of Life and Death
is about to be closed,
and the hand of God will inscribe
the destiny of man.
It hesitates, trembles, stops.
A voice, sweet and frail,
an imperceptible murmur,
rises toward the firmament;
it is a young Jew who prays.
His soul, hurled toward Heaven,
reaches the Holy of Holies.
The Ark is…
Please login or register for free access to Posen Library
Register
Already have an account?
Engage with this Source

While this poem first appeared in an undated poetry anthology titled Poèmes tristes (Melancholy Poems), it was subsequently published in 1949 in the journal Études juives. 

Related Guide

Holocaust and Post-Holocaust Fiction and Poetry

1939–1973

Jewish literature developed individual rather than collective voices, as postwar Jewish identity was transformed by the forces of modernism and assimilation.

Related Guide

The Holocaust: Years of Catastrophe

1939–1945

Jewish writing in Nazi-occupied areas documented ghetto life, moral questions, and Jewish identity, while writers in free zones grappled with the unfolding tragedy.

Creator Bio

Jacques Taraboulos

1919–2011

Jacques Taraboulos was born in Cairo and studied at the Collegio Rabbinico of Rhodes and at the École rabbinique de Paris. Taraboulos then lived in Elizabethville in the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), where, with Robert Joseph Cohen, he wrote for and published the series Études juives, writing about Jews of the Middle Ages and discussing the religions of the Middle East. The destruction of Jewish lives during the Holocaust affected his outlook, and his poems are collected in the undated work Poèmes tristes (Melancholy Poems).

You may also like

Letter to the Front

To be a Jew in the twentieth century Is to be offered a gift. If you refuse, Wishing to be invisible, you choose Death of the spirit, the stone insanity. Accepting, take full life. Full agonies: Your…
View Source

Blessed Is the Match

Blessed is the match, consumed in kindling flame. Blessed is the flame that burns in the heart’s secret places. Blessed is the heart that knows, for honors sake, to stop its beating. Blessed is the…
View Source

You’ll Return with God’s Help

You will come back. You will, with God’s help, come back With a far-off, alien look. (I’m preparing myself, I already know, I’ve seen how they come back.) You will sit in your regular chair, unsure A…
View Source

We Polish Jews

“All right,” someone will say, “granted you are a Pole. But in that case, why ‘we jews’?” To which I answer: because of blood “Then racialism again?” No, not racialism at all. Quite the contrary. Th…
View Source

In the Army

With evening a whistle. Again the sweating store room opens its throat wide, and we march out in formation worn down by the heat wave and a day so long: hard working soldier-women. And why should…
View Source

God of Mercy

O God of Mercy Choose— another people. We are tired of death, tired of corpses, We have no more prayers. Choose— another people. We have run out of blood For victims, Our houses have been turned into…
View Source