Culture, Israel

City of David

A new poem by Aryeh Bernstein.
Chorus:
City of David, City of Peace
Criminal haven, den of thieves.
Spiritual knaves, as Jeremiah preached
We’re digging our graves with our arrogant greed.
The undivided, eternal, Come all, come one,
never mind the person behind the curtain.
The fix is in, the deal’s sealed, hon.
El-Ad can drill on and steal Silwan
Arab permits to build — you won’t see one
but strike ’em down, they get stronger like Obi Wan
I’m game to come to Zion, but baby, get real, mon
no game; you can’t steal home like Neon Deion
What kind of pioneer relies on theft and con
your claims of pioneer’s straight frontin’ agwon
A real pioneer is creative, original
integrates indigenous aboriginals
my watchdog clock, tick tock, it don’t stop
I’m such a pioneer that my name is La Rock
You’re liars and thieves, a fake a crock
in the houses that you take in Sheikh Jarrah.
you’re ecstatic — you shock me like sweater static
spastic ’bout the land like heroine addicts
we’ll be the first to die like Crispus Attucks
grow uncontrolled — that tactic’s cancerous
I came into the door; I’ve said it before
I’ll block you like Emeka Okafor
You gladiate with child’s play like patty-cake, I’ll vaccinate
evacuate you, bat your best away like Shane Battier

City of David, City of Peace
Criminal haven, den of thieves.
Spiritual knaves, as Jeremiah preached
We’re digging our graves with our arrogant greed.
Lemme tell a tale that suggests you’re fascists
Abdullah or Nasr goes to study for a Master’s
In France or really anywhere in the Diaspora
To enhance his chances of plans to advance.
The point of the matter — after wrapping up on campus
He tries to prance on back to Nablus
or whatever, wherever home in Palestine.
Border cops turn him out like he’s a party crasher.
Invent defense threats that amount to slander
cheat like Mike bitin’ the ear off Evander
What’s happ’nin’ is a gradual de facto Transfer.
You say you banned Kahanists, but you’re not being honest.
I can’t take solace when you lock out the moderates.
Immodest to cover up indecent policies;
can’t fool us, cause it’s truly Gilui Arayos*
To catch you is hardest if the warden ain’t watching
When you thought we’d bought what y’all been plottin
But you not as smart as you think you are
Cause we’re onto you; we’ll stop you cause we launched an audit
Whose tale of our remaining neighbors we should harvest
It reports that they resort to fighting us as martyrs
Cause the posse w/ the hottest chance of stopping ’em you’ve barred
We see urgency, emergency, our cars are MADA’s**
Before you drop us on the 3rd rail on the red line to Jarvis***
City of David, City of Peace
Criminal haven, den of thieves.
Spiritual knaves, as Jeremiah preached
We’re digging our graves with our arrogant greed.
Never mind the Bollocks, the most obnoxious
Topic to follow’s your Museum of Tolerance
And we can’t talk politics if you say the word “Holocaust”
But your product, your gist, is revisionist denial.
Your land grab is frantic, so I’m gonna be candid –
To call it “tolerant” is anti-semantic.
If Goyim**** built a museum on Jewish graves
Oh boy, you’d scream “our blood’s desecrated!”
If Arabs tried this, you pricks would throw fits
You ain’t into tolerance; you’re Auschwitz hypocrites.
Don’t believe you when you tell us you’re promoting culture;
you’re thieves and deceive with Orwellian cover.
That’s why we gotta stop your deceptive con
like the Autobots on the Decepticons.
Your potion makes us sick, it’s poison/eres
tovel bemiqveh uveyadekha a sheretz*****
you dare us to sue, when our Darrow is Clarence
you won’t wear us down, ’cause we’ll vote for Meretz******.
And if they’re lame, a mirage, can’t put the kabosh
on your game, they botch…can’t get you out of Dodge
they talk too much, mouth like a garage
bon voyage, by gosh, we’ll give our vote to Hadash******.
And as for you, doing damage with your actions and words
We’ll shut you down, take you out like the sciatic nerve
City of David, City of Peace
Criminal haven, den of thieves.
Spiritual knaves, as Jeremiah preached
We’re digging our graves with our arrogant greed
* “Gilui Arayos = “revealing nakedness”, a catch-all Hebrew, legal phrase for sins of the most wanton sexual impropriety and immodesty.
**MADA — Magen David Adom, “The red star of David”, ie, Israel’s Red Cross.
***Red line to Jarvis: Chicago, yo. 2nd-to last stop on the northbound Howard St. Red line “L” train
****”Goyim” — “nations”, a colloquial term for Gentiles, sometimes with a slightly derogatory tone.
*****”tovel be-miqveh uveyadekha a sheretz” = “immerse in a ritual bath while holding an (impure) rodent in your hand.” A Talmudic phrase for the essence of an insincere, deceptive, and ultimately frivolous and pointless faux-spiritual act.
******Meretz is a left-wing political party in Israel, actively advocating Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories and the creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel. Hadash is a farther left, more radical party of Jews and Arabs advocating one, binational state of all its citizens, instead of partition.

8 thoughts on “City of David

  1. Tower of Solomon, copy deleted
    Unison deserted, unity repeated
    Fathers of children, found by Ezekiel
    Builders of justice with more parks than cells.
    Division and unity are not cause and reaction
    Socialist terms that are way out of fashion
    There’s no gamble or sport for the wells of Silwan
    They get water and more sorts of civic aplomb
    There were no Jewish permits from 48-67
    …more Jews were homeless, less in 11
    Zion is there and the work is in building
    You might understand if you were not always civilian
    While a Jew can’t surf Gaza like Gal Friedman in Athens
    Or play a gig like Gene Simmons in amphitheatre Damascus
    What kind of theft or lost wages are those
    When it comes to pioneering it’s chummus and cola sneeze nose
    more fields of green than for 2000 miles
    original west coast of the nation of Zion
    Pie on.
    Every boiled egg in Yerushalayim’s the same
    Sheik something or other has a Hebrew name
    Before the east coast of communist habit of heroine came.
    So far as that’s concerned I’ll quote MLK
    “Anti-Zionism = Anti-Semitism” they are one and the same.
    like an old school DJ and a basketball player,
    teachers of western
    history;
    sharing the same brain
    Like a punch to the face by our own Yuri Forman
    out-populated at the foot of our door is the score man
    The rocket’s red glare is still there in Sderot
    If things don’t improve there will be a moat.
    Tower of Solomon, copy deleted
    Unison deserted, unity repeated
    Fathers of ancients, found by Ezekiel
    Builders of justice with more parks than cells.
    Abdel and Nasr who went to LA, got degrees in the college
    And then went all the way, this time with girls
    instead of all boy bordellos
    Like back home in Nablus where they actually met
    but boys that cry don’t remember hello
    When they pranced back and soldiers saw the kink duo
    Their own families decided that now they would screw them
    If you don’t know your place in an Arabic lie
    You won’t fool the bad ones, and you can’t help
    …the good ones get by
    more often than not they are not even bitchin’
    there’s no shame in Israel to work in a kitchen
    Or to study in buildings that Jerusalem paid for
    in one of 7 cities of exile or did you think that
    ….Oslo was wayward
    That they should put down their missiles and leave guns to
    their po-po, not shout us out of every conference we go to,
    not forge their press that paint’s a Jew as a vermin.
    Knowing an enemy is exceptional learning.
    Our blood has been desecrated not with Orwell… but Jung.
    With or without needles the damage git’s done.
    Just for the children let’s all quote cartoons.
    In 30 years time they will not even have clues.
    If we swing to the left we will not get laid
    You can bet they will trick us like Russians,
    ie.. not for pay
    You can get out of Dodge, but I’d stay there in Tombstone
    Sip a fifth of good bourbon like I do in my own home
    Like Doc Holiday if he were to drink MD 20/20
    It’s just real estate standards
    and municipal spending
    If a vote were a sanitary wipe, I might vote Hadash
    Like a call from Shimon to Yehiye… ah yash…
    “Don’t know Karate, but I know ka-razy” thus spoke the soul godfather
    You, Israeli? you would be less lazy and
    …stronger.
    Tower of Solomon, copy deleted
    Unison deserted, unity repeated
    Fathers of children, found by Ezekiel
    Builders of justice with more parks than cells.

  2. We Jews are a very independent people..boy we are on all sides of a debate..LEFT>>RIGHT and Middle! I know Israel isnt perfect..who is? But thsi i know..we Jews are tied to Israel’s survival. A

  3. sorry i didnt finish A qoute from Eric Hoffer a nonJew..”so it goes with Israel ..so it goes with the world”…I beleive that with all my heart! “Israel’s suggle is a world stuggle”!

  4. What a lovely poem! I remember when I was small my old man used to read this to me before going to bed. I hope that one day there may be peace in the middle east. God bless us all.

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