Friends’ Silence about Foes’ Violence

My life has never seriously been marked

by silences; though I

have been a streetcar, usually I’ve parked

by signposts saying “Why?”

I define myself by what I am

and not by what I’m not:

there are no rails inhibiting this tram

from swerving, to ask “What?”

My swords don’t swerve in order to avoid

attacking evil men,

and I by their  malignity annoyed

pose this sad question “When?”

A question that especially applies

to problems like: “When will

our friends give up their silence about lies

of foes who wish Jews ill.”

The question is rhetorical, friends’ silence

the fence on which they choose

to sit, without protesting against violence

when it’s just harming Jews.

Amy Schumer quoted a comment made Martin Luther King’s comment about the silence of friends regarding violence in Forward on 11/1/23:

Schumer previously posted an image of MLK to Instagram with his quote, “in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” She turned the comments off.

It is as if MLK was prophesying about the contemporary situation in which people who claim to be philosemitic friends of Israel react with silence to the antisemitic October 7 Hamas pogrom.

Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.