Jewish Holiday Poems

Jewish Holiday Poems

Poems about Jewish Holidays

Since the diaspora, coming together at holidays and celebrating Jewish heritage and culture is an important part of a Jew's religious identity and experience. Lighting candles at Hanukah, breaking glasses at weddings to remember the destruction of the Temple, sharing a Seder meal to commemorate the Passover, are all traditions to remember ties to the past and to each other. These rituals tie everyone together in culture, tradition and religion. Sharing in the holidays is a remembrance of millennia of history and customs. They bring the past into the present and Jews from around the world together in one purpose

8 Jewish Holiday Poems

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  1. 1. Never Shall I Forget

    "Never Shall I Forget" by Elie Wiesel is a poem about the Holocaust and the atrocities committed against the Jewish people. Elie Wiesel writes about his personal experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, the horrors committed during the Holocaust and the lasting impact they had on the him. The poem is written in a simple, direct style and uses vivid imagery to convey the unimaginable horrors of the camps. The repetition of the phrase "Never shall I forget" serves to emphasize the emotional impact of the memories and the importance of remembering the past in order to learn from it and prevent antisemitic hatred from arising again.



    Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
    Never shall I forget that smoke.
    Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
    Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for ever.

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  3. 2. The Feast Of Freedom

    Passover (or Pesach as it's called in Hebrew) is the Festival of Freedom, a Jewish Holiday commemorating the liberation of the ancient Israelites from Slavery in Egypt.
    Passover is celebrated in the springtime. The poet uses the different seasons as metaphors to time periods in the history of the Jewish people. Winter is slavery and exile when Israel and the Jewish people are ruled by others. Spring, the revival of freedom. Summer, the time when Israel ruled itself with the temple in Jerusalem.

    I REMEMBER in my childhood
    From my grandfather I heard
    Charming tales of gone-by ages
    That my soul so deeply stirred.

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  5. 3. The Eternal Riddle

    The poem by Philip Max Raskin was published as part of the book, "Songs of a Jew" in 1914 in London. It celebrates the resiliency of the Jewish People who throughout their history have been persecuted and yet they have persevered. The eternal riddle is how have they survived so long, while their foes, much stronger than them, are relegated to the page of the history books.

    Israel, my people,
    God's greatest riddle,
    Will thy solution
    Ever be told

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  6. 4. Chanukah Lights

    From The Standard Book of Jewish Verse published in 1917. The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah (or Chanukah), is also known as the festival of lights because of the candles which are lit in a Menorah, an 8 branch candelabra. Hanukkah lasts 8 days and on each day another candle is added to the total.
    As told in the poem, the holiday commemorates the 2nd century BCE rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem (part of Judea, another name for Israel) after the successful Maccabean Revolt. The Maccabees were the leaders of a Jewish rebel army, led by Judas, who took back control of Judea from the Syrian Greeks.

    I KINDLED my eight little candles,
    My Chanukah-candles--and lo!
    Fair visions and dreams half-forgotten
    To me came of years long ago.

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  7. 5. Passover

    Passover is a Jewish holiday, usually in April. We eat different things to symbolize different things: the matzo and parsley in salt water already explained in the poem; a cinnamon, nut, and apple mix to represent the mortar used in the brick wall the Jews built to protect themselves from Pharaoh, the evil ruler they were being controlled by; horseradish to symbolize the harsh treatment by him; and a hard-boiled egg, which represents a continuous New Year. There is also a bone on the plate, which represents the sacrificial lamb. We hold a prayer dinner called a seder, which explains these things among other traditions, too many to list here. Thanks for your interest.

    At Passover, it's matzo mother is making
    Because years ago while the bread was baking
    Pharaoh came and chased the Jews away
    On this somber holiday

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  8. 6. Demons In Disguise

    I wrote this poem about the Holocaust because I find it so heartbreaking to learn about what these innocent people went through because of simply who they were. They didn't deserve to die for being born a certain religion. I felt their pain so vividly, so I decided to put it into words. I dedicate this poem to all the victims of the Holocaust.

    • By Kaylee Kowch
    • Published: June 2013 by Family Friend Poems with the permission of the Author.

    There was peace among the streets
    Children playing in the warm summer heat

    Husbands greeting wives with a genuine smile

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  9. 7. Holocaust

    During the Holocaust, many lives were lost. Women, Men, Boys, and Girls. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons daughters. Not just Jewish people too. They took them all. We must never forget these 6 million people and who killed them.

    6 million people, 12 million hands
    Strapped together like rubber bands.
    6 million people, 12 million eyes,
    Mother and children with last goodbyes.

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  10. 8. Passover

    The Jewish holiday of Passover, which celebrates God taking the Hebrews out of bondage in Egypt, is celebrated in the spring. Jews don't eat leavened bread for the week long holiday of Passover. Leaven, which is what makes the bread rise, is replaced with "Matzo," which is a flat, cracker like food, for the week long duration of the holiday. Removing the leaven from one's house is compared on a spiritual level to removing puffed up forms of pride from one's heart.

    • By M. Kass
    • Published: March 2010 by Family Friend Poems with the permission of the Author.

    Holiday of new
    New Nation
    New buds coming out - flowers and leaves
    The world mirrors its newness in trees

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