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CELEBRATION AND CHALLENGE
Next Year in Jerusalem
a sequence of poems by Adam Horovitz
published by HooHah Press, 2004
Adam Horovitz, son of the
poets Frances and Michael Horovitz, has published his first pamphlet of
poetry. The pamphlet, entitled Next Year in Jerusalem, is a sequence of
poems that draw upon Horovitz's relationship with Judaism and family. Born
outside the Jewish faith to a Christian mother, Horovitz has often had a
complicated relationship with religion.
“Whilst the majority of my father's family, all from a highly Orthodox
background, have been very accepting of me as an individual,” says
Horovitz, “some have not. Some fundamentalist members of my family have
even gone out of their way to avoid meeting me. I wrote Next Year in
Jerusalem as a celebration of family, and also as a challenge to it.”
 Next Year in Jerusalem also explores parallels between Horovitz's divided
upbringing and aspects of Jewish history, as well as the crises that
continue to bedevil the Middle East. “The sequence addresses various
tensions,” says Horovitz. “My grandfather, decorated for bravery as a
German Cavalry Lieutenant in WW1 yet forced to flee Germany in 1937; my
own upbringing, caught between two religions founded on broadly identical
myths and principles; the divided – and divisive – state of Israel today.
Both Jews and Palestinians claim descent from Abraham and a belief in
God.”
The pamphlet's title is taken from a prayer Jews offer up annually at the
Passover feast, expressing the hope that next year they will be able to
celebrate freedom in the city of Jerusalem. “My own hope is that, next
year, everyone will be able to celebrate freedom in Jerusalem, be they
Jew, Christian, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, or other. We are all fellow
humans. I stand firmly behind the closing line of the poem that opens the
sequence: There is no ghetto in blood.” (See poem herewith.)
To buy a copy of Next Year in Jerusalem, e-mail
hoohahpress@stetpress.co.uk
or send a cheque or international money order, made payable to Adam
Horovitz, to:
HooHah Press
29 Horns Road
Stroud
Glos
GL5 1EB
Great Britain
Next Year in Jerusalem retails at £2 (plus 50p p&p 1st class or 40p p&p
2nd class in the UK, plus 90p p&p to Europe or plus £1.30 p&p to the rest
of the world).
At current rates of conversion, £2 approximately equals $3.60
Married to
the body
Blood, like music,
links back into itself,
rich with the thought-threads
of generations.
In the blood,
haemoglobin sings like fire
dancing on the rooftops.
DNA shivers and spirals
through veins,
mournful as clarinets.
Blood is a hurtling music
married to the body.
There is no ghetto in blood.
© Adam Horovitz 2004
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