All the generations before me

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All the generations before me

• Nathalia, Marcos

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All the generations before me
All the generations before me contributed
meLittle by little so I will emerge here in
Jerusalem All at once, like a prayer
house or a philanthropy. That compels. My
name is the name of my contributors.

That compels.
I approach the age of my father's death.
My will has many
patches.I have to change my life and my
deathDay by day, to fulfill all the
propheciesThat prophesied me. So they won't to
be a lie.That compels.
I passed my fortieth year. There are jobsI
cannot get. If I were in AuschwitzThey wouldn't
have sent me to work, They have burned me right
away. That compels.
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Contributed

• Israel was created by Jews abroad "contributing"
  large sums of money for weapons, prayer houses,
  hospitals, money to build one new country. It was
  created by wealthy Jews like Rothshield that came
  here and "contributed" of their wealth to build
  whole towns and settlements.

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Jerusalem

• What is the importance of "Jerusalem" in Judaism?
• Jerusalem was the center of the Jewish people on
  the time of the bible and is until now. This is
  the place that the Jewish people feel is their
  house, and this city is considered a city of key
  importance to the religions of Judaism,
  Christianity, and Islam.
•  
• Yehuda Amichai, the author of the poem, was born
  in Jerusalem. All the generations that came
  before him always fought to live there, and just
  because of that effort it was possible for him to
  be born there.

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The 12 tribes

• The name Yehuda was one of the 12 tribes of
  Israel from the Bible. On the history from the
  bible, Jacob fathered 12 sons Reuben, Simeon,
  Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher,
  Naphtali, Joseph and Benjamin. They are the
  ancestors of the tribes of Israel, and the ones
  for whom the tribes are named. Each occupied a
  separate territory on Israel (except the tribe of
  Levi, which was set apart to serve in the Holy
  Temple).

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Prophecies

• In Judaism we have one day (Yom Kippur, that
  means the day of forgiveness) that we take
  account of all that we did on the year, good or
  not. The name of this accounting is "heshbon
  nefesh or self-examination.
• This part of the poem refers to the
  self-examination" that a Jew does as he gets
  older, before he dies, and the author of the poem
  feels that his time is getting closer.

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Prophecies

• For if you truly amend your ways and your
  doings,if you truly execute justice one with
  another,if you do not oppress the alien, the
  fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood
  in this place,and if you do not go after other
  gods to your own hurt, then I will let you dwell
  in this place,in the land that I gave of old to
  your fathers for ever.Jeremiah 75-7
• This is the prophecy that is written on the bible
  about the Promised Land, which was promised for
  the Jew people. Yehuda Amichai refers to this
  prophecy when he writes the poem.

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Auschwitz

• Auschwitz is the name used to identify three Nazi
  German concentration camps and sub-camps.
  Beginning in 1940, Nazi Germany built
  concentration camps and an extermination camp in
  the area. The camps were a major element in the
  perpetration of the Holocaust.
• The total number of casualties is still under
  debate, but most modern estimates are around
  1-1.5 million. About 700 prisoners attempted to
  escape from the Auschwitz camps during the years
  of their operation, with about 300 attempts
  successful.

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Auschwitz

• A common punishment for escape attempts was death
  by starvation the families of successful
  escapees were sometimes arrested and interned in
  Auschwitz and prominently displayed to deter
  others. The Jews were removed from the
  deportation trains onto the ramp where they faced
  a selection process- some were sent immediately
  to their deaths, while others were sent to slave
  labor.
• Almost all the Jewish people know some one or
  have some relative that died on the holocaust.
  But what is the meaning of the holocaust for an
  Israeli or a Jewish, if not this pain? With the
  holocaust the world realizes that the Jews needed
  one safe place to live, one country for them,
  because if they have one place this cannot happen
  again.