The New/Old Land

-KJ Hannah Greenberg

They fold,

Jewish origami,

Like Menachim and Ephriam’s children,

Bringing Kiddush Hashem,

To the new/old land.

They teethed,

On the Rebbe’s muschalim.

Or, in France, breathed in Avraham and Sara,

While packing electronics and photo albums.

Their prayers hum new words to old wishes,

Malachim watch, fierce wings, frightening faces,

Sighing, until at last commanded to disperse forever,

To lift the burden of Galut.   

Once a rhetoric professor who wrote for periodicals like The American Journal of Semiotics and The Massachusetts Journal of Communication, and spent National Endowment for the Humanities money in places like Princeton University's Classics Department, Channie Greenberg is now a committed creative writer who tramps across genres. Currently, she is the creative nonfiction judge for Notes & Grace Notes, the “Old/New World Discourse” blogger for The Jerusalem Post, the “Teen Stage” blogger for Type-A Mom, and the power behind Expressively Yours Writing Workshops®.

Her most recent work has appeared in: Doorknobs and Bodypaint, Fallopian Falafel Zine, Hamodia, Joyful! Mishpacha’s Calligraphy, Mishpacha’s Family First, The Clarity of the Night, The Externalist, Tuesday Shorts, and Unfettered Verse. In the near future, her articulated irreverence will be published by: AlienSkin Magazine, AntipodeanSF, Bewildering Stories, G. Stern’s Hag Samaiach Anthology, Ken*Again, Literary Mama, Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine, Morpheus Tales, Poetica Magazine, The Blue Jew Yorker, and The Mother Magazine.