Skip to main content

Blessed Is The Match

A while back, on my previous site, I posted a blog about Hannah Szenes. This is what I wrote:

"Blessed Is The Match


Hannah Szenes was a young, Jewish Hungarian girl who emigrated to Palestine in the 1930's. During the Second World War, she volunteered to parachute back into Hungary to help rescue the Jews therein. She was captured by the Nazis and along with the complicity of the Hungarians (under Horthy), she was tortured and executed. After the establishment of the State of Israel, she was re-buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. She was only 23 years old. I so very much wish she had lived to experience the founding of the State of Israel. She would have been so proud.

A number of years ago, I read her diary. I was so moved by the content that I felt the need to set one of her poems, written in Yugoslavia, just before her capture in 1944, to music.

Blessed Is the Match

Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.
Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honour's sake
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.


Hannah has been a heroine of mine for a long time.

This entry is for her."

You can now hear the song if you press the "play" button.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Jewberry Muds

To get the full effect, this message should be read out loud. You will understand what 'tenjewberrymuds' means by the end of the conversation. This has been nominated for the best email of 2005. The following is a telephone exchange between a hotel guest and room-service at a hotel in Asia, which was recorded and published in the FarEast Economic Review: Room Service (RS): "Morrin. Roon sirbees." Guest (G): "Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service." RS: "Rye..Roon sirbees..morrin! Jewish to oddor sunteen??" G: "Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs." RS: "Ow July den?" G: "What??" RS: "Ow July den?...pryed, boyud, poochd?" G: "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please." RS: "Ow July dee baykem? Crease?" G: "Crisp will be fine." RS: "Hokay. An Sahn toes?" G: "What?" RS: "An toes. July Sahn toes?" G: "I don't think so."...
3 comments
Read more

Bye Bye University

I can't quite believe it but today is in fact my last as a student. My course ends when I walk out of school at 13.15 I've now fulfilled the statutory days demanded of me as a student teacher. From Monday, I will be effectively unemployed - until Thursday, so I reckon we'll survive. That's it folks, my course is over. I have yet to hear whether or not I've passed, although between you and me ( shhhh don't tell anyone ) I am now a newly qualified teacher in everything but name. The exam board meets Mid-July to make those all important decisions and that's when I expect to get my congratulatory letter through the post. It's been an interesting year, to say the least. There have been ups and downs although the positive has vastly outweighed the negative. I find standing in a classroom less daunting and if anything, I now have the confidence to teach, which I didn't have when I started. I know I've only been doing this lark since September (and teach...
3 comments
Read more

Magic Moments

At the end of a sunny day, Dana decided to start a water fight. She sprinkled a bit of tap water in my direction. Then her eyes lit up and she ran out of the room. I of course thought nothing of it, until she returned with a filled water pistol! That was it - The race was on to remember where I'd hidden the other three unopened packets. With pistols at the ready, the kids got in on the act and what could have been a ginormous water fight was almost immediately curtailed as Shira did not appreciate being spritzed in the face. The sheer impulsiveness of the moment was Dana all over and it's one of the things that I love so much about her. The pistols have been seized and are ready, waiting for another day when I predict we are all seriously going to have the most amazing and floodworthy water-fight. I can't wait (and neither can the kids).
Post a Comment
Read more