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In a city where the Za’atar° is fake, We are a genuine family But not complete. We are assembled from fractures of families who think That farther is better Conducting a Passover Seder without saying God And believing That next year We will be in Toronto, which has been Re-constructed.† Knowing that even if it were completely rebuilt, It will still be a night’s sleep and a little bit of a day away from Israel. In a city where the Za’atar is indeed a fake but The Matzah comes in a variety of flavours, We eagerly swallow a fast-food Matzah-ball In a Moroccan chicken soup And pray: That finding peace is not dependent on a native country; That we are not really suspended Between the fourteenth floor And the hail that is pouring on the pool, At the entrance to our apartment building, At the end of April; That we are not really so suspended In the intimacy that the estranged treasures within, The same one that turns acquaintances into saviors. ° Za'atar is a small, protected shrub from the hyssop family that is used as a spice in Israeli (and Arabic) culture. It mostly grows in Israel. † A paraphrase on the ancient sentence "Next year in Jerusa- lem when it is rebuilt," which appears in the Passover Haggadeh and in many of the important prayers in Judaism.
