Poem: Like a Miracle

And still it is beautiful as a miracle
This rosy twig of lilac…
Even in our days
of evil, terror and dread.

Even in our street
when hate swells grand with khutspa…
the little lilac twig stretches out
to you and to me like a miracle…

Zusman Segalovitch (1884-1948) was born in Bialystok, Russian Poland, to a family of rabbis. He began writing in Russian, then Yiddish. After the pogrom in Bialystok in 1904, he moved with his parents to Lodz, where he published many well-received poems. In 1939, he left Warsaw on the same railroad car as other Yiddish writers. He then wandered through Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Syria and arrived in Palestine (Israel) in 1941. There he published his famous poem of mourning, “Dortn” (“There”). He moved to New York in 1947 and died there a year later.

“Like a Miracle” is translated by Sarah Traister Moskovitz. It is part of the Ringelblum Archives.