The Stones of Lifta

The poems of Marc Kaminsky's The Stones of Lifta address the heartbreak of a history torqued and twisted by fear and hatred, but this poet's heart remains unbroken, alive, responsive, and attuned to a painful dissonance. He consents, humbly and bravely, to abide with the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians, to align himself with both his heritage and his empathy, so that the indissoluble contradictions of that conflict become, ultimately, nothing less than the paradox at the heart of being fully, vulnerably, honestly human. -Richard Hoffman Sample: HINANI Unworthy as I am, when I saw footage of my friend Menachem climbing beneath the Jerusalem hills with an old man- a displaced person-an Arab who guided him into the ruins of his home in Lifta, I felt something become as clear and actual to me as if for one pulse beat I heard a voice speaking to my heart. Call it the divine, it is the voice that calls to us once or twice in a lifetime. We recognize it immediately and answer, Here I am, for we remember it from before we were born, and remain ready all our lives to go where it sends us. It spoke clearly and distinctly as I sat with Menachem in my Brooklyn office, watching his unfinished film, it said to me, Go to Lifta, accompany your friend to the emptied village of Lifta, walk beside him as he treads carefully around the boulder that blocks the winding path up to Lifta.