I carry their names like stones in my pocket,
smooth from the weight of touch,
from a thousand whispered Kaddish
that never reached their graves.
באַשערט or just cruel chance—
who lived, who perished, who walked
from the ashes with empty hands
and hearts too full of ghosts.
Saba’s silence, Bubbe’s trembling hands,
Zayde’s eyes that never left the past—
stories swallowed, burned, buried.
"Mir veln zey iberlebn," they sung.
We will outlive them.
And so I gather the crumbs.
A flickering candle, the crack of matzah,
the slow, rising nigun that pulls
the breath from my chest.
This year, like every year,
I search for chametz and memory,
sifting through history’s dust,
finding life between the cracks.
I dip my fingers in salt water
for a sea of tears not yet dry.
I raise my glass—לחיים—to life,
to the broken and the whole.
I wrap myself in Ladino lullabies,
in Yiddish curses sharp as knives,
in the chant of the Torah’s melody—
each word a thread that stitches me
to something vast, unbroken.
They tried to erase us.
We answer with song.
With laughter spilling past grief,
with Pesach tables set in exile,
with stubborn, reckless joy.
For every name lost, we tell another.
For every home burned, we build anew.
For every past stolen, we grasp the present,
clutching every crumb of Jewish joy
like it is the bread of life itself.