Today, on Yom HaZikaron/Israeli Memorial Day, I’m thinking about my cousin, Michal Edelson, z”l, who was killed in a terrorist ambush 40 years ago, and my friends Matt Eisenfeld and Sara Duker, z”l, who were killed in a bombing of the #18 bus in Jerusalem 19 years ago, and all the others, Israelis, Palestinians, internationals, soldiers, militants, peaceniks, old people, children, adults, righteous people, wicked people, all their deaths premature, pointless, and tragic, and from a wide view, criminal, who have been caught in the bloodbath of what Yehuda Amichai, z”l, called the “wheels of the Had Gadya machine”, in his poem, “An Arab Shepherd is Searching for his goat on Mt. Zion” (here in the Hebrew original) . Here is Chava Alberstein‘s version of the “Had Gadya” poem from the Pesach Haggadah, as sung by Shirana, the Arab-Jewish Women’s Choir of Jaffa.
Here are Alberstein’s extra lyrics at the end of the song, followed by my translation:
ובכל הלילות בכל הלילות 
שאלתי רק ארבע קושיות 
הלילה הזה יש לי עוד שאלה 
עד מתי יימשך מעגל האימה 
רודף הוא נרדף מכה הוא מוכה 
מתי ייגמר הטירוף הזה 
ומה השתנה לך מה השתנה? 
אני השתניתי לי השנה 
הייתי פעם כבש וגדי שליו 
היום אני נמר וזאב טורף 
הייתי כבר יונה והייתי צבי 
היום איני יודעת מי אני
On all other nights, on all other nights
I ask only 4 questions.
On this night, I have another question:
How long will the cycle of terror continue?
The pursuer is pursued,
the striker is struck
When will this madness, this tearing apart, end?
What has changed for you, what has changed?
I have changed this year.
I was once a sheep and a tranquil goat.
Today, I am a tiger and a predator wolf.
I’ve already been a dove and I’ve been a deer.
Today I don’t know who I am.