Ezzes by Estis: Between pogrom and pogrom

Imagine if the word “Jews” were a verb. Granted, that may be quite hypothetical, but it is still extremely meaningless. So you may be asking yourself: Why should you do that? But I answer: Well, you don’t have to do it; it’s enough if you almost leave it alone.

So imagine it. Because you can imagine a lot. One could even imagine that “nomen” is not a noun, but a verb. What would “nomen” mean as a verb? Presumably it would mean being a noun. But since “nomen” would then not be a noun but a verb, “nomen” would probably have to mean: to be a verb. That may sound a little Talmudic, which may be because it is not a little Talmudic.

But I digress. You may be wondering: Why am I digressing? Because I don’t want to talk about what I’m supposed to talk about. And at the same time I want to talk about what I should talk about, but I don’t want to right away because no one immediately talks about what I should talk about now and because no one talks easily about what I should easily talk about. That’s why I imagine that “Jews” would not be a noun, but a verb. What would “Jews” mean as a verb? Maybe it would mean “live anyway,” maybe it would mean “survive,” or maybe it would mean “don’t survive.”

Sometimes my father tells me his story. “Shortly after the war started, they came and burned the village down and killed everyone. I was the only one who survived and was able to escape, through lucky coincidence.” “I can’t believe that,” I sometimes say, and my father answers: “Me neither, and it’s not true, because I have “I didn’t survive and died with the others, and you were never born.”

Sometimes the mother tells me her story, sometimes the grandmother tells me her story, sometimes the great-uncle tells me his story, sometimes the voice of grandfather’s great-grandfather tells me his story; and all of this is one and the same story. And that’s why you can ask yourself: How likely is it that you, as a Jew, even exist? And that’s why one can answer: Very unlikely. So unlikely that you can imagine that one exists – because you can imagine a lot – but you can almost leave it alone. Jewish existence is an unlikely existence. Jewish existence is something in between.

Now you might ask: between what? Between over there and there, between halfway and somehow, between sometime and ever, between maybe and possibly, between away and henceforth, between pogrom and pogrom. I’ll tell you a story, not about my father, not about my grandmother, not about my great-grandfather, and yet the same again. The story goes like this:

Once upon a time there was a shtetl. Then the people from the neighboring village came and started a pogrom. Then the false tsar’s men came and caused a pogrom. Then the real tsar’s men came and caused a pogrom. Then the Cossacks came and caused a pogrom. Then the Poles came and caused a pogrom. Then the White Army came and caused a pogrom. Then the Red Army came and caused a pogrom. Then the Romanian fascists came and caused a pogrom. Then the German Nazis came and caused a pogrom. Then the liberators came and caused a pogrom. And then there was no longer a shtetl, just a city.

After that, every word is different, even if it is one and the same. After that, the main words are suddenly no longer main words, but at most secondary words and small words. The epithet becomes a counterword, the verb becomes a word at an inopportune time. Words are no longer words, but laments, laments are no longer laments, just a groan, the groan is no longer a groan, just a trembling; You don’t understand the words, you don’t hear the complaints, you don’t feel the trembling; the trembling is only a trembling, the trembling is only a remembering, the remembering is only a digression.

That’s why I digress.