Poem By Jane Vuglar

There is a thread that binds us,

One to another,

Yellow as the Star of David 

When Holocaust beckoned.

Those who lived remember,

We who wear our stars of David 

On the thin chains of history.

Yellow the sweet raisins,

Wine, Apple, almonds, honey:

Our charoset mortar for sundried brick,

built with the torn hands of slavery.

There is a thread that binds us Jews,

We who fled across a Sea of Reeds

To freedom, with those still shackled 

By fear and prejudice: with the Uyghurs

In lands that deny their existence.

A thin yellow thread of cotton;

a few yellow raisins on a Pesach Plate:

Like a handclap for exhausted nurses

On their way to the Food Bank,

It is not enough, a gesture-

But gestures matter.

They presage change,

When enough people remember 

To care.

Jane is a member of Ark Synagogue, London