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.